The story of a runaway mother's ten days of freedom--and the pain, desire, longing, and wonder we find on the messy road to enlightenment--from Pulitzer Prize winner Quiara Alegr a Hudes. 'The White Hot has the effect of pressing your hand to a barbed live wire. April's is one of the most memorable voices I've encountered in recent fiction. . . . A] brilliant depiction of a woman learning to transform her rage into something resembling transcendence.'--The New York Times Book Review A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR: NPR, OPRAH DAILY, KIRKUS REVIEWS, BOOKPAGE April is a young mother raising her daughter in an intergenerational house of unspoken secrets and loud arguments. Her only refuge is to hide away in a locked bathroom, her ears plugged into an ambient soundscape, and a mantra on her lips: dead inside. That is, until one day, as she finds herself spiraling toward the volcanic rage she calls the white hot, a voice inside her tells her to just . . . walk away. She wanders to a bus station