Everyone knows the rule when flying: In the case of a loss of cabin pressure, put on your own oxygen mask before assisting others. In other parts of life, this principle is less accepted—especially for mothers, for whom the idea of tending to their own well-being before their children’s is often inconceivable. This is the conundrum that April Soto grapples with in Pulitzer Prize-winning author Quiara Alegría Hudes’ searing debut novel, The White Hot, a feminist reimagining of Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha that explores the complicated ways in which a mother’s love can manifest.
When April becomes pregnant in high school, she drops out despite her abundant potential and devotes the next 10 years to raising her daughter, Noelle. But after Noelle is suspended from school following a physical altercation and the two are ordered to attend anger management sessions, it’s all too much: Despite years of numbing herself with the repeated mantra “dead inside,” April snaps. In a haze of blind fury, she flees from home, leaving Noelle with her grandmother and great-grandmother and hopping on a bus to get as far away from Philadelphia as possible. What begins as an overnight reprieve from her life and from the “white hot” rage that consumes her soon spirals into an extended journey and a personal awakening that forever changes the course of both April’s and Noelle’s lives.
Written as a letter from April to Noelle, The White Hot is both a confession and a plea—if not for forgiveness, then for understanding—as April explains how her seemingly selfish behavior was not only an act of survival but also one of love. With incandescent imagery and a passion that unapologetically stings and soothes in quick succession, Hudes’ writing provokes a maelstrom of emotions that mirrors April’s own turmoil. Sometimes violent, sometimes tender, The White Hot encapsulates the agony and ecstasy of motherhood, especially when it involves learning to mother yourself in addition to your child. This utter knockout of a novel is guaranteed to leave readers reeling.