John Henry Days in Around the World in 80 Books

Jan 19, 2019 Tony rated it really liked it

Shelves: novels, read-for-bookclub

I loved Whitehead's debut, The Intuitionist, but for some reason it took me a few years to get to this second novel. This sprawling work shows that while his sheer talent and style are once again on display, his ability to sustain a narrative is not. Set in 1996, the book is loosely organized around the titular weekend festival±a grand celebration in a small West Virginia town to commemorate the release of a John Henry postage stamp. This is a center which only barely manages to hold on to the m I loved Whitehead's debut, The Intuitionist, but for some reason it took me a few years to get to this second novel. This sprawling work shows that while his sheer talent and style are once again on display, his ability to sustain a narrative is not. Set in 1996, the book is loosely organized around the titular weekend festival±a grand celebration in a small West Virginia town to commemorate the release of a John Henry postage stamp. This is a center which only barely manages to hold on to the multiple storylines, vignettes, flashbacks, ghost stories and Great American themes that Whitehead spins from it.

A good portion of the story follows hack-for-hire J. Sutter, a freelance "journalist" who "covers" whatever product/personality/story pays for his airfare, hotel, and bar bills. A once-promising writer, he's since sold his soul for whatever freebies, access, and perks he can wrangle in exchange for a decent write-up. He's currently embarked on a junketeering streak, having attended press events every day for weeks on end. Clearly, the reader is supposed to draw some kind of parallel between his struggle to take on the corporate publicity machine and the struggle of steel-drivin' John Henry taking on the corporate steam-drill machine. Each is beat down by a grinding life, but John Henry literally dies, while J. Sutter is only spiritually dead. It's no accident that the story takes place at the start of the Internet boom, just as John Henry's legend takes place at the start of the industrial era. It's kind of an interesting gambit by Whitehead, but never really coalesces into a cohesive idea.

Meanwhile, there are a ton of other ingredients tossed in the pot. There's a section on competing academics in the 1920s attempting to determine the truth of the John Henry legend. An extremely lengthy digressive story told about the Rolling Stones concert at Altamont. The story of a mild-mannered collector of railroad stamps. A nice part about the early days of recording popular songs and the scams used to increase sales. Another piece tells the story of young girl from Striver's Row buying sheet music to "The Ballad of John Henry". The tale of a Chicago bluesman making a John Henry record. Paul Robeson's ill-fated attempt to do a play based on John Henry's life. And probably a few others I forgot. One very much gets the impression that Whitehead did a ton of research on the John Henry myth in America and fell in love with all these story ideas. Each is very well-written and imagined on its own, but the presence of so many tangential parts only acts to distract from the central story, and they kind of strobe in and out, sometimes overwhelming the main plotline by being far more interesting.

There's plenty to like here-tons and tons of great writing, brilliant sentences, and vivid scenes. However, the book is so crammed with fragmentary ideas and themes of race, class, capitalism, memory, and so on, that none is allowed to emerge as central. So it's one of those rare books that is well worth reading, and yet is kind of underwhelming. ...more

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