Whites: Stories

by Mark Doten

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.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Anthologies

160 pages, Paperback

Published August 19, 2025

About the author

Mark Doten was born in Minnesota in 1978. His work has appeared in Conjunctions, Guernica, The Believer, and New York magazine.

He wrote the libretto for The Source, a work of musical theater about Chelsea Manning and Wikileaks, with music by Ted Hearne, which had its world premiere at BAM's Next Wave Festival in October 2014, and was named one of the best classical vocal pieces of the year by The New York Times.

He attended Macalester College and Columbia University and is the recipient of fellowships from Columbia and the MacDowell Colony.

The literary fiction editor at Soho Press, he lives in Brooklyn.

His first novel, The Infernal, was published by Graywolf Press in February 2015.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review for this collection was published by Library Journal in July 2025:

In this unflinching performance of satirical ventriloquism, Doten (Trump Sky Alpha) goes deep undercover to file a fictional report about the state of American whiteness in the wake of the pandemic, and the results aren't promising. These 13 stories feature a gallery of bewildered, propagandized, and perpetually aggrieved white people—liberals, conservatives, podcasters, politicians, January 6 rioters, QAnon disciples—as they beg for understanding in a world that they no longer know how to navigate. The gay white supremacist in "Banana Bunch Challenge," about to articulate his rage through mass violence on 4Chan, runs into the commercial imperatives of Gen-Z teens trying to increase their practical-joke channel's views on YouTube. In the title story, a nonprofit-housing manager finds her life’s work upended after an encounter is recorded and uploaded online, branding her a Karen, while the paranoid nursing home employee of “Every Soul Ever” goes to desperate lengths to prove her anti-vax bona fides to her legions of unseen subscribers. What binds these characters together is their unshakable belief in the essential rightness of their positions, even as they face mockery, alienation, and worst of all, irrelevance. Doten slips into these voices and their milieus seamlessly, exposing the hypocrisy behind their testimonies and the profit-motivated systems that incentivize their anger and despair; all this the author does with humor and empathy. VERDICT This incisive collection won't be shelved with formal horror titles, but its effect is no less bone-chilling.

Copyright ©2025 Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. Reprinted with permission.

[Kaleigh · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well, it was truly “excoriating,” as the blurb claims, but I was hoping it would have been excoriating in a funny way 🥲. It reminded me of Tony Tulathimutte’s Rejection, in that it features caricatures of brain-rotted internet radicals, although Whites comes off more hateful, bleak, and disturbing than Tulathimutte’s OTT satire. I imagine it will also appeal to fans of Ari Aster’s Eddington, as it also concerns 2020s era politicization, but it didn’t land with me.

The characters are irredeemably evil losers—a rambling Elon Musk walking on a woman he refers to as “human meat” and fretting over the optics of her being a Black woman; a QAnon mother who murders her drag queen son; etc etc it’s dark bro—and I think the point is to feel some catharsis at laughing at how awful and stupid they are (?). I wish there had been anything besides pure vitriol, like empathy so that maybe I could think critically instead of easily distancing myself from these monsters, or at least more humor, as in absurdity á la South Park or cleverness á la Whit Stillman (?). Without some other nuance to the satire it just becomes idk writing villains or diatribe. I thought I would laugh through this but I ended up feeling sad and gross the whole time which may have been the point...

Thank you to NetGalley and HighBridge Audio for the ALC.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

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?

[Adam Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Genius.

[Marl · Rating 4 out of 5]

[4 stars]

With 14 short stories in just about 160 pages, Whites thrusts us into the rapid ramblings of various (USA-centric) white people of different ages on different mediums trying to explain away their thought processes. From a man on 4Chan writing out his manifesto after murdering his parents to a white business owner speaking to a black woman he wrote to write up the company’s BLM statement after getting called out to a Congressman giving a statement about border walls to the public, Doten is able to pull together these people into a genuinely funny collection of satire pieces.

I love when a collection of works are all obviously in the same collection because of a shared style. In this case, it's no quotation marks, (mostly) first person, stream of consciousness ramblings. There's a general sense of “I need to explain my case” in all of these stories - most of them take place after some event occurs that triggers the meltdown - and it is wonderful. It’s also why this collection took me over a month to read through, as it was just tiring at times to really appreciate each story with this stream of consciousness style. Not a fault to the book, but this is definitely a one-story-a-day-at-most collection. The stories, though short even compared to other short stories, have so much to bite into. They are funny, they are genuinely good pieces of satire, they feel so real, the writing is excellent, and many characters are able to just almost convince you (especially in the titular story “Whites” and “50 Thousand Gringos”).

I’m American and mixed white, so I’m not sure how much you’d get out of these stories if you’re not American (or Canadian, I presume). Maybe if you’re online enough or follow American media and news, more of it would come through, but it’s definitely something to consider before picking it up. Not a fault of the book and I still think non-Americans could get a laugh out of many of the stories, but there is definitely an intended demographic. Also, if you’re completely burned out on books/stories about COVID19, maybe put this one aside for now. The book focuses on the responses of white Americans in various situations and lives in the recent years, which includes multiple stories about the pandemic (only one or two of these have the virus as part of the main topic, but it's a set piece to many - if not most - of the stories here). I felt that its inclusion was necessary considering the topic of satire here, but I still see complaints about “pandemic stories” so I figured I’d mention (though all but one of the stories that mention it take place post-quarentine).

The best story was “Lord Wumpa”. Here, the CEO/higher up of a large bakery company is talking to a black woman who co-hosts a true crime podcast with her sister and recently has made an episode calling out the bakery company for creating ultra-processed high-sugar foods targeted towards black communities, having a racial character as a mascot in the past, and the possible relation to the murders/disappearances of many black people in the area around their factory. The business man refutes these claims, saying everything from the fact that their health-minded products have become more popular since quarantine, that they work with many distributors with black salespeople, to that they retired the mascot long ago. As the story progresses and we read the paragraph after paragraph of the ramblings, weird little things start popping up, building until the reveal. It’s such a good piece of slow build storytelling in a short story format. “A Fence is Not Walls” is another and is such a good piece of flash fiction (two paragraphs!) that has been on my mind since reading (and is so far the only story I have re-read multiple times). The titular story “Whites” was great and really hit that “I want to feel bad for you” sense that several other stories also do right. “Every Soul Ever” was very short (almost to its detriment), but a well-fitting send off to the collection.

There are a few stories that really did not work for me. “J6ers” felt like nothing to me and was overshadowed by parts of “I’m Wide Awake It’s Jumpman” later (which itself was well-written, but I think I just didn’t “get” if that makes sense). “Pray for Q” just did not work for me at all and I did not think the sudden shift came off right at all. The ratio of good to bad stories is still way in the positive, though, and none spoil the rest of the bunch.

Whites is such a strong and thorough collection with so much to dig into. Though definitely anti-Trump/Maga/white supremacy, Doten goes out of their way to pick some un-obivous targets for their satire. These include a nonbinary podcaster and a woman working in a nonprofit benefiting the homeless who genuinely cares for her work - all white, of course. There is a big range in ages as well, from teenagers to the elderly. I was impressed with how fresh and not repetitive that Doten was able to make each of their stories within the constraints of their chosen writing style. Very skilled writing even outside of the realm of satire/humor. A strong collection to pick up and with stories short enough to not lose your interest, I highly recommend.

[Susie Williams · Rating 4 out of 5]

{thank you to NetGalley for my copy of this audiobook!}

OK, this book definitely isn't going to be for everyone, but I thought it was wonderfully hilarious. Don't read it if you can't handle satire as it's one of the most satire-y satire books I've ever read. In the beginning I actually had the thought, "wait, is this actually NOT satire and some kind of crazy far-right ranter who somehow got a book deal??"

The book is a collection of stories rather than a novel, but they are all told in such a way that makes everything feel very cohesive and not like a typical book of short stories. Each "chapter" is told by a different white American voice, including well-intentioned liberals, newly "woke” CEOs, Covid deniers, QAnon members, and more. It even starts off with an Elon Musk narrator stepping on a human body immediately following a catastrophic rocket launch. The audiobook is fun because some of the crazy ranting really comes through... Along with the terrible coughing of Covid! My husband walked in the room when I was listening at one point and thought I was off my rocker listening to Covid deniers hack their lungs out and rant about the government.

I will say that the book has lots of graphic sex scenes that seem to pop up out of nowhere. I'm not *totally* sure of their purpose, but think they have something to do with the author wanting to make us explore power dynamics and how sex and desire can get tangled with entitlement, racism, and status. I think it also has something to do with wanting to shock us just a little bit more. This would certainly be an interesting discussion for a book club.

Whites is likely to make you very uncomfortable, to rile you up a little, and maybe even to force a look in the mirror you’ve been avoiding." But it's also very likely to make you laugh out loud and give you a whole lot to think about.

[Ricky · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mark Doten’s collection is competent satire. There are laughs. There is a reflection of our moment, both dire and banal. But, with a few exceptions in the collection, I’m not certain there was much insight.

With first-rate satire, the laughter sticks in your throat a little. Here, if the author is aiming to show us the characters’ humanity and their foibles simultaneously, then I’m not certain this effort always succeeds—but I recognize the difficulty in pulling that off.

The laughs are not always at a character’s expense, but even in the case of the monologues—which dominate the collection—there is a sense of peering at characters rather than inhabiting them. This could be a reflection of the characters having little self-awareness, but if so, I’m not sure this works well as craft.

There is also a sameness to the monologuists’ voices which, by the end, made my reading feel less pleasant and a little more like an endurance test.

The most *brilliant* exception to my mild critiques is the penultimate piece, “I’m Wide Awake It’s Jumpman,” a real tour-de-force of writing. Even on its own, it would justify picking up this book. Inventive, trenchant, tragic, and comically human—I’d love more of that from this author!!

On the whole, Doten’s efforts mostly land, just not with the force and depth of “I’m Wide Awake It’s Jumpman.” I wanted to love the collection overall, but I did at least wind up very much liking it. Worth reading for the topicality, and while most pieces don’t dive very deep beneath the surface, the few that do truly shine.

[Nick Artrip · Rating 4 out of 5]

I requested and received an eARC of Whites: Stories by Mark Doten via NetGalley. I haven’t read a short story collection in a while, so I was excited for the change of pace. Doten’s set of stories interrogate the pathological narratives that shape our current cultural moment. Narrated by a wide array of White people, Doten’s stories dissect the logic that informs the decisions of a nonprofit Karen, a gay incel, an elderly QAnon mother, a non-binary J6er, and even an anti-woke billionaire.

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.

[Bebo Saucier Carrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley for providing me an ARC of this book for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

This is an odd little short story collection told kind of like an exposé of white people right after the pandemic. It's a scathing satire that made me laugh at times, cringe at times, and meditate on my own whiteness at times. I think it's well worth a read, though most pieces are very stream of consciousness style and that may not be to everyone's taste. I think with all of the stories being that way, it got a little tiring after a while. I found myself wanting a little more variety to the form and content of some stories.

The most narrative story, "Lord Wumpa" was by far my favorite as it also played with genre a little and had some culty horror elements.

[Peter Rock · Rating 5 out of 5]

To enter into language is to enter into lies.

I could feel the heart beating, however faintly.
It was fascinating. I was also a meat container, like the body I was an assemblage of human meat, with its own heart still beating in its own meat cage, and if this is something one can do-if one can be human meat walking on other human meat—if this is in the range of human experience, then, I thought, what else might be possible?

We don’t have to apologize for our feelings. It’s what we do with those feelings—that’s where you can get into trouble.

[Bob · Rating 2 out of 5]

While it is possible that there are readers who will be able to take a large dose of Mark Doten's stories, those of us who simply don't have the mental stamina to stay with page after page of stream-of-consciousness satire aren't likely to get through all of 14 of them.
I could barely stand two.
Doten is creative as all get out. And I agree with making fun of much of what Doten was making fun of.
But my brain doesn't think-in-a-non-stop-machine-gun-pace, no less often about off-the-wall junk.
If yours does, maybe you'll be able to read the whole book.

[David Ivany · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just a tad bleak. 😐
Very apropos to read this on the day of the Charlie Kirk shooting, with all of the hollow statements and faux 'principled' outrage. Tony Tulathimutte has come up in a few reviews and I would say that Whites does for race and conservatism what Rejection did for sexuality and gender. "I'm Wide Awake It's Jumpman" nailed the moving targets of the self and non-self, identity and history, cringing and wincing. Deeply uncomfortable but does it with purpose.

[Megon · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's a selection of short stories, but they are all written in the same voice. They repeat themselves endlessly and can't seem to separate their thoughts. It all runs on and runs together and sometimes it's hard to tell it's supposed to be a different story. There doesn't seem to be any point to most of the stories. Just some jumbled rambling. I did get this book from Goodreads.

[Lesley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great narrator! Thought provoking and heavy satire on the modern American culture. I’m not huge fan of short stories and this one was a bit heavy for me in the current heavy news climate, but it was well done. I prefer a funnier satire like the recent Fever Beach. Second to last story was my favorite.

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Doten crafts a short story collection that moves swiftly between identity politics, conspiracy theory, right wing movements, and a million other things that have happened over the last 5 years. It’s extremely online, it’s funny, sharply satirical, and really well written. The literary equivalent of Ari Aster’s Eddington.

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this. Similar level of satire to Rejection but much funnier.

[Pari]

I’m realizing I personally don’t have it in me to read any more satirical and absurd stories about vile characters who are an exaggerated representation of our culture’s worst. Like, I GET IT! Anything else?? Damn.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mark Doten is gifted at capturing the voices of those who love the current president. These stories are searing satires of the already self-satirizing maga crowd.

[Charles Gee · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slight variations on aggrieved befuddlement.
…a tad repetitive.

[Tessy Consentino · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was perfection. Satirical short stories. But lots of truth to them. A few stories I’ll be thinking about forever.

[Karen Carlson]

review in electri clit https://electricliterature.com/their-...

[Valerie · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5⭐

I get the point, but it was a bit too much of beating a dead horse after awhile. 

[Alyssa]

DNF at 50%. This is just not for me.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

3-4