BLUE RUIN - Hari Kunzru

At one time, Jay was a working artist in London. A graduate of a prominent London art school, he was heading toward greatness and everyone he knew seemed to have his path as a celebrated artist already paved for him. But now Jay is living out of a car in upstate New York, an undocumented alien, delivering groceries to the upscale homes during the peak of the pandemic.

One afternoon when making a delivery to a large house on a sprawling acreage of land, Jay recognizes Alice, a former lover of his back in art school. Their relationship had been a bit stormy and ended when Alice and art student Rob left for America where they clearly now found wealth and comfort.

Although Jay hopes Alice won't recognize him - a shell of what he once was - she does and encourages him to come to her home until the pandemic passes. There he meets an eccentric gallery owner and his girlfriend and Jay is confronted with his past, his future, and the present that could have been.

This is a really splendid tale of art, love, and dreams, and art, love, and dreams lost.

We don't really get the sense that Jay regrets his life until he sees himself reflected in the others around him. And author Hari Kunzru (I've not read anything by Kunzru previously) weaves some of the past into the story so that we can get a direct, first-hand look at Jay, Alice, and Rob's lives when the future was wide open in front of them.

The relationships are quite powerful without being confrontational or full of a phony romance. What Jay and Alice and Rob have seems both idealized and 'real' at the same time. We move on, but we stay connected - that connection is as thick or thin as the original relationship was strong.

I'm typically not a fan of books that bounce back and forth in time, but somehow it really works well here. In part I think it's because we're not going to the past to set up some big plot point, we're going to the past to understand a character and how they have (or have not) changed. 

This is smart, funny, touching, and I wasn't even bothered by the Covid references. 

Looking for a good book? Anyone interested in art or had dreams of following their heart into one of the art professions, should really connect with Blue Ruin by Hari Kunzru.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

4-1/2 stars

* * * * * *

Blue Ruin

author: Hari Kunzru

publisher: Knopf

ISBN: 9780593801376

hardcover, 272 pages

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