Whiteouts - Softcover

'An expertly realised account of mental illness, family trauma and violence, this first novel combines literary power with all-too-clear contemporary relevance' Publisher's Weekly

'Blaine, the editor of New York stories magazine, puts his acute sense of place to effective use in this tense piece of psychopathology. Maurice checks out of a mental facility and begins to hear voices. They tell him to buy a semi-automatic - and to ask his family to meet him at a remote humting camp. Dark, disturbing fare' The Times

'This is a powerful portrait of a family paralyzed by a son's mental illness, passing around blame, cringing and resentful of his visits, suffering guilt in his absence...Blaine has rendered a compelling tale of madness and family relationships' Booklist

'A cracker of a book' Independent on Sunday

'Fear and murder pervade each page to the point that you can barely read the next. An addictive read' The Big Issue

'This is an urgent, exhilerating trip into and out of half a dozen minds in the grip of dire emergency. Vivid and scary, [WHITEOUTS] has none of the fingerprints of a first novel on it. Michael Blaine has the daring and command to tell a story as accurate and as fractured as a bad-news broken mirror' Rosellen Brown, author of BEFORE AND AFTER

'This book scared the hell out of me. Praise Blaine for enlightening us and breaking our hearts at once. Praise him for his encompassing examination of a family in fragments. Praise him for seeing the soreness and sorrows of fools like us in love' Frederick Busch, author of THE NIGHT INSPECTOR

Maurice Coleman, the disturbed 19 year-old son of a small-town banker, checks himself out of a private mental facility and buys himself an automatic pistol. After a spree of sex and drugs, he begins to call his family and friends, to draw them to what may become their killing ground.