John Henry Days
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
From the bestselling, two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, a novel that is "funny and wise and sumptuously written" (Jonathan Franzen, The New York Times Book Review).
Colson Whitehead’s triumphant novel is on one level a multifaceted retelling of the story of John Henry, the black steel-driver who died outracing a machine designed to replace him. On another level it’s the story of a disaffected, middle-aged black journalist on a mission to set a record for junketeering who attends the annual John Henry Days festival. It is also a high-velocity thrill ride through the tunnel where American legend gives way to American pop culture, replete with p. r. flacks, stamp collectors, blues men , and turn-of-the-century song pluggers.
John Henry Days is an acrobatic, intellectually dazzling, and laugh-out-loud funny book that will be read and talked about for years to come.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Before transforming metaphor into reality in the Pulitzer-winning The Underground Railroad, Colson Whitehead wrote this comic epic about folk legend John Henry, who died, hammer in hand, after winning a steel-driving contest against a steam-powered machine. Black journalist J. Sutter travels to a small West Virginia town’s festival celebrating the folk hero, where his encounters with locals and other reporters make him reassess his own ambitions. Incorporating fragments of how the railroad man’s myth permeates American pop culture, John Henry Days is a symphony of distinct and colourful voices, showing a cherished American hero in an illuminating new light.
