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Book Title

Whites

Subtitle
Stories
Author 1
Mark Doten
Body
The excoriating stories in Mark Doten’s brilliant first collection dissect the pathological narratives that shape our culture and country. Narrated by a crosscutting array of White people, Doten’s stories spotlight the self-serving logic through which their characters struggle to make sense of, and take control of, the narrative of our time. They run the political spectrum from “well-intentioned” liberals and newly woke CEOs to Trump appointees, QAnon adherents, and believers in replacement theory. There is an anti-vax nursing home employee, an anti-woke billionaire, a nonbinary sneaker podcaster turned January 6 insurrectionist, a nonprofit LA housing president dubbed “WORST KAREN EVER,” an elderly Republican in denial of his COVID-19 diagnosis, teenage YouTubers responding to a shooting at their suburban Minnesota school, a demonically possessed cookie manufacturer drafting a BLM statement with his new Black employee, and a gay White supremacist figure who may be a joke on 4chan, but will have his revenge.
 
While their identities and allegiances differ, all of them are united by a ferocious belief in themselves, certain that everything they’ve done can be justified, if you’ll just hear them out. In Whites, Doten has written a relentless book that confirms their standing as one of the great satirists of their generation.

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List Price
$17.00
ISBN
ISBN
978-1-64445-290-5
Format
Format
Paperback
Publication Date
Publication Date
Subject
Subject
Pages
Pages
160
Trim Size
Trim Size
5.5 x 8.25
Keynote
Corrosive stories about the insatiable logic of whiteness, by one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists

About the Author

Mark  Doten
Credit: Adrián Galindo
Mark Doten is the author of Trump Sky Alpha and The Infernal. One of Granta’s 2017 Best of Young American Novelists, they are an editor at Soho Press and have taught at Princeton University and Columbia University. They live in Princeton, New Jersey and Mexico City.

https://www.markdoten.com/
More by author

Upcoming Events

Mark Doten reading and in conversation with Ed Park for WHITES at Powerhouse Arena

Date:
Location:
powerHouse Arena in Brooklyn, NYview map
Ticketed event. Copies of Whites will be available for purchase from powerHouse. Click here for tickets.

Books Are Magic’s Small Press Small Fest

Date:
Location:
Books Are Magic (Montague Street) in Brooklyn, NYview map
Books Are Magic presents the second annual Small Press Small Fest, a celebration of indie publishers with readings and signings from special guests, free swag, and of course, stacks on stacks of books! Graywolf Press will table from 2:00 to 5:00, with readings from Mark Doten (Whites), Ariana Reines (The Rose) and Stacey D'Erasmo (The Long Run) from 3:00 to 4:00. RSVP encouraged. Click here for details.

Praise

  • “In our extremist political climate and celebrity-book-club-oriented literary one, I’m glad this collection — and daring, pyrotechnically gifted, berserk-confronting authors like Doten, a vanishing breed — exist to do the real work.”—Teddy Wayne, New York Times Book Review
  • “Doten is a skilled satirist, and this collection matches the disorienting comic tenor of their previous novels, Trump Sky Alpha and The Infernal.”—Emma Alpern, Vulture
  • “These venomous, discomforting stories may soon feel ‘of their time,’ but what a time. Imagine the white malaise of Sam Lipsyte and the heightened satire of Gary Shteyngart shot through with a tab of Mark Leyner’s hyperstylized metafiction. Maybe that’s the right frame of mind to ask what white people are really made of, these days. A consciously caustic critique of white fragility that means to leave a mark.”Kirkus Reviews

  • “Doten (Trump Sky Alpha) delivers an uncompromising satire of contemporary white supremacy in this bold collection. . . . Every character is painfully convincing in their anger, condescension, or meekness. It’s a wild and caustic ride.”Publishers Weekly
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