White Flights: Jess Row

A critique of white isolation in literature, music, and film.

“White flight” is well known as the movement of white Americans into segregated communities, whether in suburbs or gentrified downtowns. In White Flights, Jess Row extends this analogy to white writers setting their stories in isolated or emotionally insulated landscapes. Using close readings of work from the likes of Don DeLillo, Annie Dillard, and David Foster Wallace, Row examines the ways writers have built up imaginative space for themselves without closely engaging with race. Going beyond criticism, Row also envisions writing and creativity as reparative work.

Jess Row is the author of the novel Your Face in Mine and the story collections The Train to Lo Wu and Nobody Ever Gets Lost.