Blue Ruin opens with the protagonist, Jay, delivering groceries to a palatial home in a rich enclave of upstate New York. On the doorstep his customer stands masked; this is happening in the early days of the Covid lockdown. Thus it takes him a moment to recognise Alice, his girlfriend from another life.
Twenty years before, Jay and Alice lived together in London. He was then an up-and-coming Young British Artist, and she an aspiring curator. They had one
