During the turbulence of the COVID-19 pandemic and its cycles of isolating lockdowns, many artists and writers had to draw creative inspiration from their own memories. Hari Kunzru’s seventh novel, Blue Ruin (2024) – the third in a tricolore after White Tears (2017) and Red Pill (2019) – might be seen as one such example. Blue Ruin: the story of three young, art-school graduates living in London during the late-1990s (a time when Kunzru himself was working in the UK capital as a journalist), and the tale of their pandemic-era reconnection in a secluded housing compound in the woods in upstate New York. These two strands are brought together through the first-person narration of Jay, a once-promising performance artist who courted attention from galleries and institutions alike.
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