Having saved his coming-of-age materials for his second book, Whitehead is able to place J.'s plight in a richer and more ambiguous context than the typical 20-something hero enjoys.

Sutter, but cannily engages the interior crisis of manhood in present-day America. Whitehead's new novel, ''John Henry Days,'' not only features a male protagonist, a young freelance journalist named J. Myself wishing that Whitehead had written about a man.īut all is forgiven now. Of power and feeling generally smallened by the culture, perhaps believe himself to be, at some deep level, not male at all? I confess to being unappetized by all three possibilities and so, fairly or not, I found Is the heroine doing double duty as the novelist's fantasy sex object? Is the writer trying to colonize fictional territory that rightfully belongs to women? Or does the young literato, lacking the perks Although it's technically impressive and theoretically laudable when a male novelist succeeds in inhabiting a female persona, something about the actual practice makes me The book established Whitehead's intelligence and originality as a novelist, but I wasn't too excited by the world of elevator inspection, and I was frankly irritated by the author'sĬhoice of Lila Mae as the protagonist. Olson Whitehead's first novel, ''The Intuitionist,'' was a lively comic fantasy about a New York City elevator inspector

Tunnel Vision: An Interview With Colson Whitehead.

Audio: Colson Whitehead Reads From 'John Henry Days'.

The hero of Colson Whitehead's new novel is out to set a record of his own at a festival celebrating John Henry.

John henry days by colson whitehead