Jul 3

Jul 3 The Last White Man

Author: Mohsin Hamid
Publisher: Riverhead
Goodreads | The StoryGraph

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Note: Content and trigger warnings are provided for those who need them at the bottom of this page. If you don’t need them and don’t want to risk spoilers, don’t scroll past the full review.

Cover Description

From the New York Times bestselling author of Exit West, a story of love, loss, and rediscovery in a time of unsettling change.

One morning, Anders wakes to find that his skin has turned dark, his reflection a stranger to him. At first he tells only Oona, an old friend, newly a lover. Soon, reports of similar occurrences surface across the land. Some see in the transformations the long-dreaded overturning of an established order, to be resisted to a bitter end. In many, like Anders's father and Oona's mother, a sense of profound loss wars with profound love. As the bond between Anders and Oona deepens, change takes on a different shading: a chance to see one another, face to face, anew.

Hamid's The Last White Man invites us to envision a future — our future — that dares to reimagine who we think we are, and how we might yet be together.

TL;DR Review

The Last White Man is another stunner from Mohsin Hamid and his heartbreaking commas. It’s a quick read with lots of layers that kept me thinking long after I’d closed it.

For you if: You like novels that use magical realism as a metaphor.

Full Review

First, thank you to Riverhead for the advanced copy of this book. Exit West is an all-time favorite, and The Last White Man was one of my most anticipated reads of the year. I’m happy to report that it is excellent, with lots of layers that kept me thinking long after I’d closed it.

This is a quick read (under 200 pages), but so resonant. The story is about a gym instructor named Anders who, in a reimagined-Kafka moment, wakes up one day to find out that his skin has gone from white to brown. He’s not alone; more and more people’s skin changes until there’s (briefly) only one white man left. We also see a lot of Oona, a white yoga instructor who’s casually sleeping with Anders. Both of their parents factor heavily into the story as well, in ways I’ll let you discover for yourself.

The book is, of course, an exploration of whiteness from within, as Hamid has said in previous interviews. But in the letter printed at the front of my advanced reader’s copy, he also talks about how he’d been “white enough” (PhD, etc) to enjoy a certain level of privilege in the US — until 9/11, at which point only his skin mattered. I found that holding both of these approaches to the story in my mind as I read (what would happen if white people lost their whiteness, vs the metaphor of a non-white person grappling with a lost illusion of inclusion) made the reading experience even richer, with even more reflection.

Some of the other things I’m still contemplating about this book include the identity of the last white man and how his time as such ended, and the exploration of different kinds of deaths and how they impact loved ones.

And, of course, I fell hard (again) for Hamid’s signature long, beautiful sentences — aside from the opening line, I’m not sure there’s a single paragraph that isn’t just one single sentence. This won’t be for everyone, but I love their momentum, how they pull you along and crest into a wave that breaks on the paragraph’s last few words, again and again and again for a whole book.

Oh, there’s so much more I could say if all of you had already read it. I think we’ll be seeing this on the Booker Prize longlist next week.