PositiveLocusIf we judge a novel based on how it addresses the current moment, then Hari Kunzru seems to have published his last two books out of order. White Tears , released back in 2017, is a ghost story that interrogates America’s historical (and current) exploitation of Black musicians with a message about the systemic racism that resonates with the Black Lives Matter movement and the global protests against police violence. In contrast, Red Pill is a nihilistic novel about the culture wars, white nationalism, and populist Presidents that feels more in keeping with the Charlottesville march, the “Dark Web,” and Pepe the Frog memes. Of course, a book about racism, whenever published, is never anything but relevant ... the questions and concerns that Red Pill considers, that haunt the book’s protagonist, right now don’t feel as pertinent as they did even six months ago ... Red Pill is hit-and-miss when it comes to examining the West’s abrupt lurch to the far right. Our protagonist has the distinct texture of a straw man: the liberal academic, deeply insecure about his work, but unaware of the world around him or how rapidly it’s changing ... Although the concerns discussed in Red Pill may seem like the least of our problems, it does come out a month before the November 2020 election, and at least here it acts as a reminder of what’s at stake when we eventually move beyond the seemingly endless horizon of the pandemic.
