Ghosts, Music, White People and Black People

I am a man of reason and so-- of course-- I don't believe in ghosts, I don't believe in a spirit world, lurking just beyond what we can see and sense . . . but that doesn't mean I don't occasionally enjoy a ghost story (Hamlet, for instance) and Hari Kunzru's new book White Tears is primarily a ghost story, and the ghosts in this tale often manifest themselves sonically and they have been badly put down by the white man; if you like music and musical production, then this is the ghost story for you . . . it's about two white kids who want to find and create "authentic music," it's about race and cultural appropriation, it's about obsessive collection, money, power, desire, and oppression . . . and mostly it is a very very weird, fragmented, well-written, surreal, and slightly self-congratulatory version of the 1986 film Crossroads . . . the middle section of the book loses some momentum, but the pay-off is vivid and tragic and moving and it will connect you with the spectre of racism way down in Mississippi in a very real way (and if you want something lighter to read with a musical theme, check out this Quincy Jones interview, it's amazing).