Book Review: White Tears tries to speak for a litany of historical crimes against African Americans, from slavery, the Jim Crow South, economic exploitation, and cultural appropriation, all the way up to white guilt and the Black Lives Matter movement. The story begins quietly enough, with two young, white men who love black music, collecting blues recordings on 78s from the Twenties and Thirties. But as they delve deeper into the music and the past, all hell breaks loose. Hari Kunzru has done his research into record collecting and blues artists, which mostly rings true. Anyone who's heard of Son House, John Hurt, or Skip James, Paramount or Black Patti records, will be right at home. As will anyone who wonders what happens to sound waves -- where do they go, do they ever disappear? And are the wealthy different than you and me? White Tears is born of good intentions, but to hang the history of racial injustice on a ghost story is too much. All the disparate elements, from America's original sins all the way down to descriptions of hipster cool and a clumsy, fumbling love story, don't quite come together, can't come together. The reader can't fault Kunzru for his reach exceeding his grasp, he mixes time and souls and more, but it didn't work. In the end, despite fine writing, a rolling plot, and striking scenes, White Tears is a novel in bits and pieces. Worth reading, but not nearly as good as it wanted to be. [3½★]
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