"Oyeyemi delivers her third passionate and unusual book, a neo-gothic tale revolving around Miranda and Eliot Silver, fraternal twins of Haitian descent raised in a British house haunted by generations of afflicted, displaced family members, including their mother.... The book is structured around multiple voices—including that of the house itself—that bleed into one another. Appealing from page one, the story, like the house, becomes extremely foreboding, as the house is storing its collapse and can only be as good as those who inhabit it. The house's protective, selfish voice carries a child's vision of loss: in the absence of a mother, feelings of anger, betrayal, and bodily desire replace the sensation of connection. Unconventional, intoxicating, and deeply disquieting." —Publishers Weekly (starred)
"Oyeyemi’s third mystical novel weaves a tale of four generations of women and the house in Dover, England, they’ve inhabited—a vengeful, Gothic edifice that has always rejected strangers." —Booklist
“[A] remarkable, shape-shifting tale.... The narrative oscillates between the mundane and the supernatural, and it is this skilful blend of the fantastic and the everyday that makes it resonate so chillingly. While ghosts may skulk inside the house, the horrors lurking outside are equally alarming.... Yet, for all this trickery, Oyeyemi's writing is vividly emotional…. In the end, this isn't a fantasy about ghosts and witches. It is really about memory and belonging, love and loss.” —New Statesman
“Superbly atmospheric…. [A] mesmeric exploration of alienation and loss…. This eloquent narrative delivers grandly on the promise of Oyeyemi's startling debut…. Oyeyemi's languid cadences are more burnished, her sinuous ideas more firmly embedded in the fabric of this disturbing and intricate novel. The dark tones of Poe in her haunting have also the elasticity of Haruki Murakami's surreal mental landscapes. White is for Witching has the subtle occlusions of her previous two works with a tenacious undertow, drawing the reader into its deeper currents.” —The Independent
“Oyeyemi is a writer who moves easily between the literary, the demotic, and the supernatural…. She is sharply amusing on the strangeness of the ordinary world…. Already her technical skill as a novelist is remarkable, her range of reference formidable, and her use of language virtuosic.” —The Daily Telegraph
“A weirdly compelling mix of modern gothic, matriarchal magic, and coming-of-age tale that weaves the supernatural and mother-daughter relations deep into its fabric.” —Financial Times
“Cleverly, Oyeyemi engineers the narrative so that the novel reflects not only a teenager's solipsism but also her furious energy and capacity to attract harm…. The language is rich; ideas proliferate; myth and story tangle together luxuriantly.” —The Times
