Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Colson Whitehead's New Novel

This one, his fourth, is called Sag Harbor.

Based on the reviews and the excerpt that ran in The New Yorker a while back, it's something of a departure: autobiographical, first-person narrator, coming-of-age story taking place during one summer, etc.

He's one of those writers who I'll follow anywhere and read anything he publishes.

The first book review I ever wrote for The San Francisco Chronicle was for Whitehead's first novel, The Intuitionist. (Read that review here. It also contains my favorite opening line for one of my reviews: "There's little literary precedent for the elevator novel.")

And I was even more impressed by his second novel, John Henry Days. So impressed that I started writing like him, or rather trying to write like him, because of course I can't; he's way better, way smarter, way funnier.

We do, however, have one thing in common: We both used to work for CNET.

Anyway. Some Colson Whitehead goodness for your perusal...

2 comments:

katrina said...

I have this one, Andy, sitting on my to-read-next pile which is so tall it's more like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

Andrew Roe said...

Ah, I'm jealous. I haven't picked up Sag Harbor yet, but plan to do so.

Good luck w/ that tower. Right now I have lots of little mini stacks scattered throughout the house.