THE WHITE BOOK

This brief novel--shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize--is a haunting meditation on loss and memory, movingly narrated by Jennifer Kim. Even though the unnamed narrator of the story is a successful author, she reflects on her life and how aimless she has become. In many passages she ponders the color white--snow, an empty sheet of white paper, an infant's swaddling clothes. She believes this rootlessness began before her own birth, when an older sister died soon after being born, forcing the narrator to recognize that, if things had been different, she herself might never have existed. Kim's voice gives the story the immediacy of a recent loss but also the joy of finding a relationship, no matter how ephemeral, with the sister she never met. A rare treat for listeners. D.G.P. © AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine [Published: MAY 2019]