is a 2020 novel by American writer Joyce Carol Oates, about a man who was killed by the police and the aftermath of his death on his family.
[2] John Earle McClaren, nicknamed "Whitey", is a well-respected 67-year-old man who served as the mayor of Hammond, New York, and is the father of five children.
The rest of the novel concerns the fall-out of Whitey's death for the McClaren family—Whitey's widow, Jessalyn, and his children, Beverly, Lorene, Thom, Virgil, and Sophia—including Jessalyn's relationship with a Cuban artist and Thom's pursuit of charges against the officers responsible for Whitey's death.
[3] Reviewing the novel in The New York Times, author Bret Anthony Johnston considered it a positive installment in Oates's engagement with the topic of race, comparing it favorably to her 2015 novel The Sacrifice, though he noted that its "considerable length" may dissuade readers.
[1] Hephzibah Anderson in The Guardian called it "an uncomfortable snapshot of modern-day America" and noted its resonance with the murder of George Floyd.