If White Tears was a car, it would be a high-performance sports coupe dragging a fully laden lorry, its wheels billowing smoke as it struggles to make any headway.
Hari Kunzru’s tale of white appropriation of black music in the US, that develops into a ghost story linked to Depression-era racism, is beautifully vivid, with the author making the bleakest scenes fizz with life (and death).
But this expert literary scene painting is married to a disappointingly obvious storyline: privileged young white musicians (one of them stinking rich) who are searching for “authenticity”, in this case in the obscure world of 1930s Delta blues.
The paranormal element of this “ghost story” is well done, but not chilling, if that’s what you want.
A story about cultural identity is very much on trend, but White Tears doesn’t quite nail it.
