Whites
Stories
by Mark Doten
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Pub Date Aug 19 2025 | Archive Date Jul 31 2025
Description
Corrosive stories about the insatiable logic of whiteness, by one of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists
The excoriating stories in Mark Doten’s brilliant first collection dissect the pathological narratives that shape our culture and country. Narrated by a crosscutting array of White people, Doten's stories spotlight the self-serving logic through which their characters struggle to make sense of, and take control of, the narrative of our time. They run the political spectrum from “well-intentioned” liberals and newly woke CEOs to Trump appointees, QAnon adherents, and believers in replacement theory. There is an anti-vax nursing home employee, an anti-woke billionaire, a nonbinary sneaker podcaster turned January 6 insurrectionist, a nonprofit LA housing president dubbed “WORST KAREN EVER,” an elderly Republican in denial of his COVID-19 diagnosis, teenage YouTubers responding to a shooting at their suburban Minnesota school, a demonically possessed cookie manufacturer drafting a BLM statement with his new Black employee, and a gay White supremacist figure who may be a joke on 4chan, but will have his revenge.
While their identities and allegiances differ, all of them are united by a ferocious belief in themselves, certain that everything they’ve done can be justified, if you’ll just hear them out. In Whites, Doten has written a relentless book that confirms their standing as one of the great satirists of their generation.
Advance Praise
“Mark Doten’s work has always been brilliant, daring, and absolutely vital. Whites is a collection that could upend fiction, exhort nonfiction, and maybe even save us if enough of you agree.”—Dennis Cooper, author of I Wished
“I am forever in awe of Mark Doten, a virtuoso stylist and ventriloquist whose visionary satires are spurred by a moral urgency that marks him as my generation's Bernhard as well our Burroughs. Whites is a pathbreaking brain-deranger—blistering and prescient, sure, but let's not forget funny and dirty and extremely fucking weird.”—Justin Taylor, author of Reboot
“Mark Doten finds beauty where the rest of us despair. I heart these stories, which crown our moment.”—Joshua Cohen
“Prescient about our current moment to an unsettling degree, Mark Doten’s Whites pushes satire to its farthest edge, tapping deeply into the id of American society and capturing something truly horrifying and real in the process.”—John Keene
Marketing Plan
National media outreach
Bookseller outreach
Library and academic marketing
Author events in NY, DC, and Minneapolis / St. Paul
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National media outreach
Bookseller outreach
Library and academic marketing
Author events in NY, DC, and Minneapolis / St. Paul
Targeted digital advertising
Social media promotion
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781644452905 |
| PRICE | $17.00 (USD) |
| PAGES | 160 |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Nicholas A, Reviewer
From the moment I read “Even Elon…” the first story in Doten’s collection I knew I was in for a wild ride. My personal favorites were “Banana Bunch Challenge” and “I’m Wide Awake It’s Jumpman.” These two really allowed me to roam around in the protagonist’s psyche, but I also found some of the much shorter stories like “A Fence Is Not Walls” and “Burns” equally effective in their lightning like ability to jolt the reader. I’m still disturbed by “Lord Wumpa.”
With a healthy serving of cynicism, humor, and home truths, Doten accomplishes something remarkable with Whites. You may be tempted to enter this collection under the impression you will simply be guffawing with each turn of the page, but be prepared to have a good, hard look in the mirror. The author is relentless in his satire, peering into the crooks and crannies of his character’s minds. A wonderfully uncomfortable reading experience that made me cringe, sigh, and laugh aloud.
Katie K, Reviewer
Whites is a sharp, satirical collection of short stories that dives headfirst into the tangled web of racism, privilege, and identity in contemporary life. With wit, discomfort, and an unflinching gaze, Mark introduces a cast of characters who range from the outright abhorrent anti-vax nurses, 4chan-fueled white supremacists , to the morally conflicted nonbinary survivors of abuse, liberal expats in Mexico City, DEI consultants navigating performative ally ship.
Each story is a punch to the gut followed by a nervous laugh. You’ll cringe, you’ll question your own biases, and you may even feel empathy for people doing objectively terrible things. That’s the brilliance of it, Mark doesn’t let you off easy. These aren’t morality tales with neat endings. They're messy, funny, disturbing snapshots of a country (and a world) teetering on the edge of cultural reckoning.
From the pandemic and school shootings to Black Lives Matter and the contradictions of white liberal guilt, Whites challenges every reader, regardless of background, to look in the mirror. Because while you might not be the CEO of a baking conglomerate or someone who believes fences are walls, these stories will leave you wondering: What part am I playing in all of this?
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