The Last White Man review: Insightful if sometimes dour novel of identity

In an allusion to Kafka’s The Metamorphosis, Mohsin Hamid’s latest novel opens with its white protagonist Anders waking up to find himself inexplicably transformed into a dark-skinned man (not an insect). Horrified to be robbed of his God-given privilege, he alerts Oona, with whom he has a noncommittal dalliance. Before long, other Caucasians have followed suit and civil unrest follows. Anders and Oona become closer as they bond over grief from familial bereavements.

At first, it’s hard to know what to make of this novel. Despite an intriguing premise, Kafka’s gleeful absurdism gets cast aside in favour of a self-serious earnestness, as though these weighty matters must be treated with the utmost respect. Aside from a sort of chilly irony, the book is strenuously sombre despite the outlandish scenario. At best, it’s intense, at worst, dour.

Though impressive, the writing can be irksome in how fussed-over it appears. Hamid has opted for a jarringly meandering style. The sentences abounding with subclauses are so interminable they would make Henry James balk. I found myself physically craving full stops. Reading this aloud, you’d collapse from lack of oxygen.

But getting into the novel, a conceptual purpose behind the style announces itself. The sentences reflect the spiralling tributaries of our thoughts, how one thought escalates to another, often contradicting the last. Fiction can be a refuge for such doubt in a time when many are flagrantly proclaiming their certitude (like Oona’s online conspiracy theory addict mother). Each clause keeps burrowing deeper into the characters’ contradictions.

I am that deeply suspect Irish creature, a mother of an only child. It was by choice

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This unique style also plays into Hamid’s greatest strength: his empathy revealing the tangled complexity that prompts our behaviour.

He’s also insightful on questions of identity. Does a human essence remain throughout physical transformation? More banal role reversals underscore the theme – sons become like fathers to their ageing fathers etc. Some characters find the racial change discomfiting, whereas one welcomes it – she can “abandon the confinement of the past”.

Tribal types become more accepting when family members change. Hamid is perceptive on how negative perceptions lead to confirmation bias and self-fulfilling prophecies – Anders realises “people… seemed crazy whenever you thought they were crazy”. As more people transform, the seeds of utopia are sown. While some late scenes of reconciliation are borderline treacly, the moving ending is earned.