Whites: Stories

The excoriating stories in Mark Doten’s brilliant first collection dissect the pathological narratives that shape our culture and country. Narrated by a cross-cutting array of White people--stupid and/or evil, well-meaning and/or blinkered--they spotlight the self-serving logic through which an array of characters struggle to make sense of, and take control of, the story of our time. Doten’s characters run the political spectrum from self-righteous liberals and newly woke CEOs to Trump appointees, QAnon adherents, and believers in ＂replacement theory.＂ There is an anti-vax nursing home employee, a red-pilled mindfulness coach turned January 6 insurrectionist, the president of a Los Angeles housing nonprofit deemed by the internet to be ＂WORST KAREN EVER,＂ an elderly Republican who refuses to believe he’s dying of Covid (spoiler: he does), a pair of teens in suburban Minnesota making TikToks in the wake of a school shooting, and a gay White supremacist who may be a joke on 4chan right now, but will have his revenge.

While their backgrounds and allegiances differ, all of these characters 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 Mark Doten has written a relentless book that confirms his standing as one of the great satirists of his generation.

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.