John Henry Days

I approached John Henry Days with some trepidation. I enjoyed Whitehead's first novel, The Intuitionist, and thought it could harken the arrival of a strong and enduring literary career. Second novels are challenging, both for the author and for the reader. The author is challenged to live up to the promise of his/her first work. The reader is challenged by virtue of his/her own heightened expectation and anticipation that the second work will outstrip the qualities of the first novel. Whitehead has met his challenge with ease. John Henry Days stands on its own as a great and compelling read. The book also met this reader's challenge. John Henry Days exceeded my heightened expectations. The book's 'big picture' involves the ongoing, primordial struggle between humanity and technology. The big picture is presented through the prism of John Henry's 19th century battle against the soulldless steam drill and J. Sutter's inner struggle to survive in the souless world of frelance, junketeering oriented writing in the 21st century. The book is layered and textured through time. The juxtaposition, in the hands of Whitehead works exceedingly well. His writing and prose style is superb. There were some pargraphs that I read two or three times in order to savor better their flavor. Well done Colson.

Whitehead has done it again-using the idea of man vs. machine as a backdrop as in "The Intuitionist", he's created a memorable story that you can't stop thinking about long after you've read the last page. The basic story revolves around J.Sutter, a mooching freelance writer who travels to Talcott ,West Virginia for the unveiling of a commemorative John Henry stamp. His motive for the trip starts out to be the free food and fare, but he gets much more that that as the story unfolds. Intertwined in J's weekend adventure are stories of others with John Henry connections-a Black academic trying to chronicle Henry's life, a blues musician who recorded the ballad of John Henry, Paul Robeson who did a play on John Henry's life, and the daughter of an obsessed man who started a John Henry museum in Harlem. John Henry foklore completes the mosaic. It may sound complicated but actually it's quite enjoyable reading -causing you to laugh out loud one minute and be seriously pensive the next. I still have a few loose ends to clear up on my second read-looking forward to it.

John Henry Days has received so much attention lately (loved by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, as examples), so much so that I had to run right out and buy the hardcover. Does the novel live up to the hype. Yes, yes, definitely yes. There is so much to rave about in this novel. Whitehead writes like a dream. Each sentence is a work of art, and those sentences add up to a great story filled with uniquely believable characters, witty dialog and observations and an interesting story. J. Sutter is a journalist, a junketeer, taking up every invitation he receives to attend a free conference to cover whatever needs coverage. This time, it is John Henry Days, the celebration of a new postage stamp, in a West Virginia town where John Henry's legend is said to originate. The world and his job are beating J. down, just as John Henry's world and his job beat him down. But this time, it's not as obvious as grueling physical labor, instead it's the day to day grind of the junketeer's life. Whereas John Henry's world was obviously killing him, J.'s world is much more subtle. But J. has hope, whereas, we'll never know whether the legendary John Henry did. The novel juxtaposes tragedy with humor, bittersweet sadness with hopeful optimism. It embraces much of what it is to be American, as seen from J.'s perspective. All in all, a well told tale with much to recommend.

They say laughter can extend your lifetime, if so, I'm going to live a long, long time as I laughed aloud over and over again when reading this book. Colson Whitehead has the sharpest sense of humour, and a knack for making perfect, sharp observations about people - their physial tics, their dress, their pretensions, their fears, their ambitions, their uncertainties. The journalists, Tiny and One Eye, were excrutiatingly funny, I reread some of the scenes in which they appeared, just to be sure I didn't miss a single barb. Whitehead knows how to convey something else rather piercingly too - loneliness. Pamela Street, a woman trying to decide what to do with the strange inheritance her father burdened her with (John Henry memorabilia, gathered obssessively, touchingly), reminded me of Lila Mae, the strong minded but deeply solitary woman in Whitehead's first book (called The Intuitionist, another stunning novel). And these are just a few of the secondary characters, I haven't even begun to describe the main guys, J. Sutter and the mythical (?) John Henry. And I'm not going to, this is a book that you just have to read for yourself, enjoy for yourself. And if you're anything like me, laugh while you're doing it.

This is the real thing. The voice is authentic and the story is genuinely moving. The last centruy, complete with all the great movements of race and progress, technology and art are fashioned into something very close to poetry. Here is, I think, the grand scope of Thomas Wolfe writing without the illusions that were shattered by the last century. This original story will be on everyone's must read this summer. My strongest recommendation.