Avalanche

“Things used to be easier, but even in those carefree days, the  rules were in place for a reason. And that reason is: so we can all  agree. So we can all have the same standard applied across the board. So  there is no special treatment, which no one should receive. This is why  we need the rules.”

A middle-class, white Canadian echo of The White Lotus, the stories in Avalanche combine humour with an earnest examination and indictment of white  entitlement, guilt, shame, and disorientation in the wake of waking up  to the reality of racism. Focusing on the perspective of white, cis,  straight, mostly middle-aged and middle-class characters who lack  self-awareness, Westhead shines a light on the obliviousness of white  privilege, the violence of polite, quiet racism hiding just under the  surface of mundane, everyday situations, and the anguished flailing of  “well-intentioned white ladies” desperate to confirm their essential  goodness at all costs. 

The author writes with compassion and empathy for  both her frustrating and frustrated white protagonists and the  racialized characters who encounter them, and uses humour not to  comfortably distance white readers from the harmful behaviour of her  self-absorbed protagonists, but to pull them in close to recognize—and  reckon with—those familiar parts of themselves, and to become more aware  of the insidious systems of white supremacy at work behind the scenes.