A controversial, painfully intimate depiction of race in America by the esteemed author of ‘We were the Mulvaneys’, ‘Blonde’ and ‘The Falls’.

Fifteen years after the mysterious death of Minette Swift – a 19-year-old black girl enrolled as a scholarship student in an exclusive liberal arts college – her former roommate Genna begins an unofficial enquiry into the traumatic event. In reconstructing the girls' tumultuous freshman year at the college, Genna is led also to reconstruct her life as the daughter of a famous ‘radical-hippie-lawyer’ of the 1960s among whose clients were anti-Vietnam war protesters wanted by the FBI.

What follows is a gripping and personal portrayal of 'black' and 'white' in America in the years of crisis following the end of the Vietnam War, and the ignominious exposure and fall of President Richard Nixon.

‘Failures of communication seem both tragic and inevitable in a novel that reveals its author’s awareness of the complexities involved in personal and political relationships too often portrayed as stereotypes.’ Sunday Times

'Oates is such an intelligent writer, and one who is also always highly readable.' Independent on Sunday

'Oates is digging her pen into the sensitive heart of the race question, with all the intelligence and humanity we have come to expect from this brilliant and bafflingly prolific writer.' The Times

‘A compelling…read.' Daily Telegraph

‘Where the novel truly stands out is in its depiction of its two protagonists. Genna is a fine portrait on the coruscating effects of guilt on a young soul. Her halting, self-lacerating voice is painfully acute, such as when she ponders whether the persecution of her roommate is just a malicious dormitory prank or much worse.’ Guardian

‘This is a riveting, painful deception of white guilt, youthful regret and unrequited passion set in America's years of crisis following the end of the Vietnam War' Daily Mail

'The prolific Oates is bang on form with this one, a cunningly loaded mix of post-Nixon paranoia, public racism and private madness.' Metro

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Book Award and the PEN/Malamud Award for Excellence in Short Fiction. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including ‘We Were the Mulvaneys’, which was an Oprah Book Club Choice, and ‘Blonde’, which was nominated for the National Book Award. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Princeton University.