Tariq Shah, born and raised in Illinois, writes fiction and poetry, and has work appearing or forthcoming in Jubilat, Heavy Feather Review, No, Dear Magazine, ANMLY (fka Drunken Boat), Gravel, BlazeVox, and other publications. From 2007-2009, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Mozambique, and he holds an MFA in Creative Writing from St. Joseph's College in Brooklyn, where he now teaches. His chapbook, heart assist device, was a finalist for the 2019 no, dear/small anchor press chapbook series. Whiteout Conditions is his first novel.
"10 books to read in winter 2020: It's a new literary year" --Laura
Pearson, Chicago Tribune
"Most Anticipated Small Press Books of 2020" --John Madera, Big
Other
"Most Anticipated Books of 2020" --Volumes Bookcafe (Chicago,
IL)
"13 Books CHIRB Staff Read In January 2020" --Chicago Review of
Books"Shah's Whiteout Conditions delivers a brutal, cold and
haunting tale, but does so with compassion, warmth and tenderness.
The success in writing such contradictions is testament to the
skill of an insightful new author possessing a rare talent. I
couldn't imagine a better title to be our first US
acquisition."
--Nathan Connolly, publishing director of Dead Ink Books
(Liverpool, UK) /
"Dead Ink makes first US acquisition" by Ruth Comerford, The
Bookseller"'Funerals are kind of fun, ' the narrator of Shah's
debut admits in the opening pages. 'I've cultivated a taste.' Then
his childhood friend dies, and the narrator must brave a blizzard
to pay his respects."
--Azam Ahmed, New York Times "Recent Books of Interest""Whiteout
Conditions contains the language of a poet-turned-fiction writer...
and the beauty of the phrasing is often in pointed contrast to the
goofy stupidity of the characters' actions... Whiteout Conditions
is a book concerned with toxic masculinity's erasure of the self;
it's walls and moats. In the face of death, Ant and Vince
concentrate on hurting each other, drinking, taking drugs, pursuing
inadvisable revenge plots -- anything to plug the hole where their
heartache dwells."
--Caryl Pagel, Full Stop"A dazzling narrative about loss, coping
mechanisms, and vengeance."
--Ruth Minah Buchwald, Electric Literature, "20 New Asian American
Books to Read Right Now""Ant is borderline obsessed with funerals,
likening the events to weddings as gatherings he looks forward to.
Yet, when a childhood friend passes, Ant's veneer starts to
crumble. Weirdly funny, Whiteout Conditions tracks Ant and his
friend Vince as they make their way through Chicogoland's suburbs,
which, in Shah's telling, are as harrowing as any arctic
climate."
--Wendy J. Fox, BuzzFeed '15 Small Press Books To Kick Off Your
2020 Reading Season'"In this slim but memorable debut novel, Ant,
who lives on the East Coast, flies home to Illinois to attend the
funeral of one of his oldest friends, Ray. Picking him up from the
airport is Ray's cousin, Vince. Together they set out to drive to
the funeral while untangling old hurts, popping Oxy, and grappling
with adulthood's disillusionments."
--Tomi Obaro, BuzzFeed 'Most Highly Anticipated Books Of 2020'"Like
a poetic venture through the stubborn feelings of men, this short
debut novel from Tariq Shah takes an uncomfortable look at loss,
grief, and the lengths people go to avoid feeling pain."
--Jaylynn Korrell, Independent Book Review"With a resolution that
binds the human to the animal, the autonomous to the bestial,
Whiteout Conditions renders a synthesis of propitiation and cruelty
that is as palpable as it is blinding."
--Nathan Elias, Entropy"Tariq Shah's Whiteout Conditions is a slim
book that, by centering on death, allows its protagonist to explore
life... Shah leads us through a taut exploration of grief,
masculinity, and revenge with a deft hand."
--Jesi Buell, Heavy Feather Review"The protagonist of the short
novel, Ant, attends a funeral, which would affect him more if he
didn't enjoy funerals. A lot of it has to do with his history of
loss, which makes for a stark, grim, yet hilarious perspective to
explore timeless themes."
--Michael J. Seidlinger, Publishers Weekly, '15 New and Forthcoming
Indie Press Gems'"The grip of this thing squeezes well past its 110
pages. A little of this, a little of that, but reductive
comparisons are no use here because Shah has taken the best
qualities of existing tropes and made them his own. A wild,
dangerous game of dodge ball played in the farthest corner of
fiction's playground."
--Wesley Minter, Third Place Books (Seattle, WA)
"Boldly dark, strangely funny, and surprisingly sincere in its
toughness."
--Kassie Rose, The Longest Chapter"When people list things that
they enjoy, funerals generally aren't one them. Ant finds joy in
attending funerals. Yet, when the cousin of his childhood friend
dies Ant is less enthused about attending. On its surface, Whiteout
Conditions is a road trip story set against the backdrop of Midwest
Suburbia. As the story progresses it becomes more of a rumination
on loss, grief, and the ghosts in our rearview mirrors."
--Quinn Illgen, Changing Hands (Tempe, AZ)"Dark and visual,
Whiteout Conditions is a slow motion skid on black ice of a book.
You might not want to keep reading, but it will be very hard to
stop. Just steer into the skid. Well done, Tariq Shah."
--Mary O'Malley, Anderson's Bookshop (Naperville, IL)"Whiteout
Conditions is both disorienting and visceral, hilarious and
heartbreaking."
--Michael Welch, Chicago Review of Books"Whiteout Conditions, Tariq
Shah's slim but powerful debut novel, focuses on grief, loss, and
friendship in lyrical and stunning prose."
--Laura Spence-Ash, Ploughshares
"Shah reminds you that even though he's written a novel, he's still
a poet... Whiteout Conditions explores how nostalgia and toxic
masculinity operate (and fail) as a conduit for grief."
--Rima Parikh, Chicago Reader"Mile by mile, an incoming blizzard
paralleling the impending events and emotional landslide, this tale
quietly grinds toward a gut-wrenching and unexpected
conclusion."
--Beth Mowbray, The Nerd Daily"The condition of Whiteout Conditions
is the North American sublime, a grim, gnomic, hilarious dialect
Tariq Shah inherits from Denis Johnson, Don DeLillo, the Coen
Brothers, The Jesus Lizard, and Colson Whitehead. Like an icy
sidewalk, Shah's deadpan wit and verbal wizardry will knock you
flat on your ass."
--Jess Row, author of Your Face in Mine and White Flights"In the
brutal and beautiful Whiteout Conditions, a wasted road trip
through America's suburban wastelands becomes an exploration of
mortality, mercy and the mysteries of the human heart. Tariq Shah's
sharp and surprising prose is the perfect vehicle for this bleakly
comic novel, in which sparks of transcendence intermittently light
up the dark."
--David Gates, author of Jernigan and A Hand Reached Down to Guide
Me"Tariq Shah's haunting novel Whiteout Conditions has the
atmospheric rush of a winter fever dream. In his indelible main
characters, Ant and Vince, Shah has created a quasi-brotherly
relationship of sparring that reveals within their mutual
antagonism an ultimate tenderness."
--Betsy Bonner, author of Round Lake"Tariq Shah is one of the most
daring young writers I've encountered, and Whiteout Conditions is a
real original. Unsentimental, crisp, and ruthlessly cool, it is
also surprisingly tender, with moments of great warmth and
heart."
--Taylor Plimpton, author of Notes from the Night: A Life After
Dark"Written with stark lyricism, Whiteout Conditions is an
unforgettable novel about an estranged young man, his reckless
search for meaning around his post-suburban hometown, and the
impossible beauty of redemption. A hell of a ride."
--Lee Clay Johnson, author of Nitro MountainBook Club and Reader
Guide: Questions and Topics for Discussion
1. The principal characters in this book are all challenged by
their inability to avert the tragedies that befall them, and yet
many of their choices are attempts to do just this, or to right
irrevocable wrongs. How would you go about coping with similar
traumas?2. It could be interpreted that Bullets is a representation
of death itself. In what ways is this true? False? What does this
say about the characters' relationships to death in this book?3.
How do you view Ant, the main character in the book, at the
beginning, and how does that view change as the book progresses?4.
The Midwest, in the middle of winter, is often a bleak place. Have
you ever experienced this region during this time, and if so, how
does your experience track with those of these characters, and the
book's portrayal of this time/place?5. This book examines addiction
in a number of different ways. Have you ever been addicted to
something that was not a drug (e.g. potato chips/golfing/comic
books/etc)? What was it, how did this addiction develop, and what
is your view of this behavioral phenomenon in light of this? When
does a hobby become an obsession? When does an obsession become an
addiction?6. Many characters in this book get into all kinds of
fantastic trouble, and commit terrible deeds, while their
elders/parents/peers are near, at times even in the next room, and
yet they may as well be invisible, and these younger characters do
not suffer any real consequences. Have you ever gotten away with
anything similar? Do you feel there are any societal implications
to this?7. In this book, the past informs and interweaves itself
with the present, in ways both subtle and bold.The characters
choose to define themselves by specific moments of their pasts, and
thus, construct narratives of the lives they lead. This is
something all people do, often without thinking about it. And yet,
these are choices. What are some of the choices you have made that
define you, and why?8. Many characters in this book end up driven
into a kind of madness by their grief, and commit acts that,
logically, do not help their situation.What does this say about
man's nature, as a creature supposedly above acting from a place of
raw emotion? In other words, do we ever really grow up, or do we
simply learn ways to mask the children we really are?9. About
halfway through the book, Ant says, "You're a good father, Vince."
Is he? What makes one a good father? How would you describe/judge
Vince's moral character?10. How do the epigraphs at the beginning
of the book relate to the story?
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