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| Plot Summary of John Henry Days |
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"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
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| Review Analysis of John Henry Days |
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Our unique search engine provides a wealth of detail about books by breaking them down into many different literary elements, all of which are searchable (click here).
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Ratings are on a 1-10 scale (Low to High)
Plot
Tone of book?
- upbeat
Time/era of story
- 1980's-1999
Inside culture (main char)
- Black
Is this an adult or child's book?
- Adult or Young Adult Book
Outside culture (society)
- American South
If story of urban/rural...
- Small town life
Ethnic/regional/gender life
Yes
Main Character
Gender
- Male
Profession/status:
- journalist
Age:
- 20's-30's
Is this an ordinary person caught up in events?
Yes
Ethnicity/Nationality
- Black
How sensitive is this character?
- sensitive to others' feelings
Sense of humor
- Strong but gentle sense of humor
Intelligence
- Smarter than most other characters
Physique
- average physique
Main Adversary
Identity:
- none
Setting
How much descriptions of surroundings?
- 4 ()
United States
Yes
The US:
- Northeast
- Deep South
City?
Yes
City:
- New York
Small town?
Yes
Small town people:
- nice, like Andy/Opie/Aunt Bee
- dumb Rednecks, like Gomer Pyle
Misc setting
- resort/hotel
Style
Person
- mostly 3rd
Accounts of torture and death?
- generic/vague references to death/punishment
Unusual Style:
- a lot of flashback and forwards
Amount of dialog
- significantly more descript than dialog
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Click here for more information about this book
Colson Whitehead Resident Scholar Profiles
TOP SCHOLAR:
 David Fletcher
SCHOLARS:
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Note: the views expressed here are only those of the reviewer(s). | |
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