John Henry Days
Colson Whitehead Book Review

Read a book review online (click here to search reviews)

Books

Movies

Sci-Fi/Fantasy

Mystery/Thriller

Literature

Romance

Biography

History

Colson Whitehead Books	New book search	Colson Whitehead Message Board
Get more information about this book

Plot Summary of John Henry Days

"The latest issue in the American Folk Heroes series, a John Henry stamp, will be unveiled in the little town of Talcott, West Virginia, where John Henry is thought to have worked and died. The first annual "John Henry Days" festival brings a variety of people to town: J. Sutter, a young black journalist who is in the middle of a record "junketeering" run (in which free-lance journalists zip across the country on a steady diet of assignments, free food, and other receipted expenses they can get reimbursed); Pamela Street, whose father was a John Henry memorabilia collector and died 6 months before, so she hopes to sell all his stuff to Talcott; Alphonse Miggs, railroad stamp collector; "One-Eye," an older junketeer who sourly mentors Sutter; and many other residents of and visitors to the town. Whitehead's terrific narrative leaps easily about in time, not only through his contemporary characters' lives, but with single chapter visits to other personages whose lives intersect with the legend of John Henry and the town of Talcott: stage actor and political activist Paul Robeson performing in a 1940 bomb musical about Henry; Moses the bluesman whose song about Henry gets recorded earlier in the century; Jake Rose, a Jewish song plugger on Tin Pan Alley who aspires to make his name as a composer at the turn of the 20th century; Sutter's Mom Jennifer struggling with her piano lessons in the 1950s and happening upon an old, beat-up piece of sheet music of Jake Rose's "Ballad of John Henry." There are even short chapters about John Henry himself. The writing is skilled, beautiful, and often drily witty. A terrific followup to Whitehead's shorter, atmospheric debut about elevator inspectors, _The Intuitionist_."
David Loftus, Resident Scholar

Most similar books to John Henry Days
Born Blue by Han Nolan
Tears of the Giraffe by Alexander McCall Smith
Pearl by Tabitha King
Bukavu by Rukhsar Sharif
Purple Hibiscus by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Click here for more information about this book

Colson Whitehead Resident Scholar Profiles

TOP SCHOLAR:

David Fletcher

SCHOLARS:

Search for another book

Colson Whitehead

Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s).

Use our site!
Feedback
About us
Bribe your congressman!
Rudy Giuliani

Most recent discussions:

General Book Talk
Book writing discussion
Off-topic message board
.
Christina Crawford 9:31:53 AM
Martina Cole 6:40:33 AM
Michael Gerber 2:28:30 AM
Sue Grafton 10:19:22 PM
Jean M. Auel 9:54:07 PM
Gabrielle Zevin 9:13:10 PM
Andrew Clements 5:16:25 PM
Sister Souljah 5:04:57 PM
Danielle Steel 2:00:27 PM
Lisi Harrison 10:34:02 AM
Kate Brian 10:15:36 AM
Christopher Paolini 12:55:03 AM
Steven Pressfield 12:27:02 AM
Zane Grey 9:34:11 PM
Teri Woods 6:37:19 PM
Diana Marcellas 12:18:19 PM
Steven D. Salinger 12:09:22 PM
Lynn and Gilbert Morris 9:59:55 AM
Karen Armstrong 9:37:29 PM
Lilian Jackson Braun 6:38:00 PM

More message boards

John Henry Days Colson Whitehead Book Review

John Henry Days
Colson Whitehead Book Review