Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Dec 2021
192 pages
Genre: Thrillers
Publication Information
A "marvelous" (Lauren Groff) and "gentle, mysterious and profound" (Marina Abramović) novel about a woman who has come undone.
A student moves to the city to research Gothic nudes, renting an apartment from a painter, Agnes, who lives in another town with her husband. One day, Agnes arrives in the city and settles into the upstairs studio.
In their meetings on the stairs, in the studio, at the corner café, the kitchen at dawn, Agnes tells stories of her youth, her family, her marriage, and ideas for her art - which is always just about to be created. As the months pass, it becomes clear that Agnes might not have a place to return to. The student is increasingly aware of Agnes's disintegration. Her stories are frenetic; her art scattered and unfinished, white paint on a white canvas.
What emerges is the menacing sense that every life is always at the edge of disaster, no matter its seeming stability. Alongside the research into human figures, the student is learning, from a cool distance, about the narrow divide between happiness and resentment, creativity and madness, contentment and chaos.
White on White is a sharp exploration of empathy and cruelty, and the stunning discovery of what it means to be truly vulnerable, and laid bare.
"Despite the thriller-ish underpinning of the novel and the propulsive unfolding of the relationship at the book's heart, Savas' graceful and intellectual prose is the star of the show here...Like a prism, this novel brilliantly illuminates the human spectrum of connection and longing." - Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Savas offers an alluring if elusive story about the intricate relationship between an art history student and her landlady, a painter...the account of the perfect Agnes's slow crumbling builds to an unsettling conclusion. Fans of Rachel Cusk's Outline trilogy will appreciate this striking portrait." - Publishers Weekly
"In the middle ages, human skin was seen as a blanket stretched to cover a secret, inner life, writes Ayşegül Savaş. Reading White on White for me is like an outer skin which you open layer by layer as you read; gentle, mysterious and profound." - Marina Abramović
"Ayşegül Savaş' White on White is marvelous, as elegant as an opaque sheet of ice that belies the swift and turbulent waters beneath." - Lauren Groff
"White on White is a haunting, irresistible novel. I loved this book for its depth and perception, for its beauty and eerie rhythms, but most of all for its wonderfully dream-like spell. It's breathtaking." - Brandon Taylor
"A superb novel by an exceptionally elegant, intelligent, and original writer." - Sigrid Nunez
This information about White on White was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Ayşegül Savaş is the author of Walking on the Ceiling. Her work has appeared in the New Yorker, the Paris Review, Granta, and elsewhere. She lives in Paris.
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