Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
African American Prep Comes of Age in the Summer of 1985
Long before America's First Family, in particular America's first African American First Family chose to holiday in the exclusive, predominantly white beach community of Martha's Vineyard; a young African American prep school student named Benji Cooper (who may or may not have been novelist Colson Whitehead) and his family whiled away summers in Sag Harbor, Long Island.
Rebel Prep Benji follows in a long line of Holden Caufield type characters lost in a sea of social anxiety and wayward longing. Born of a world where his family dynamic was still an oddity, most especially in a place like Sag Harbor, Benji finds himself in prime position to identify the phonies in his periphery.
Benji, as the narrator of the story, makes clear his awareness, that his family: a father a doctor and a mother a lawyer, a la The Cosby Show, was considered unrealistic in some circles: We were a Cosby family, good on paper... (Truth be told, Benji's sentimental inner-dialogue, recalls more The Wonder Years, than The Cosby Show)
Colson Whitehead's Semi-Sweet Semi-Autobiography
Colson Whitehead published three highly praised novels prior to Sag Harbor: The Intuitionist (1999); John Henry Days (2001), a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize; and Apex Hides the Hurt (2006).
All three of Colson Whitehead's previous novels were very heavy, very serious efforts. So, when Sag Harbor arrived on bookshelves just in time for summer, with cover art depicting a sun-drenched young African American man costumed in awesomely bitchin' beach apparel circa 1985, promising a summer's worth of pleasant diversions; those familiar with Mr. Whitehead's weighty reputation must have felt there was a trap waiting inside this perfectly packaged beach read.
And those same stolid readers may well have read deep into Sag Harbor; through the bittersweet prose passages depicting a young man's imperfect and awkward final summer of adolescence, before realizing that there would not be a twist of magic realism to darken the clouds and weigh heavy the prose.
In fact, Colson Whitehead's Sag Harbor has such a leisurely, dear diary feel to it; and the remembrances of his young alter-ego, Benji, are so vivid, the reader may well find themselves continually flipping to the front jacket to confirm that Sag Harbor is a novel, not a memoir.
Colson Whitehead Compels the Reader Forward
The story of Benji's summer adventures in the exclusive beach community, may actually come off as a bit dull, but relatable to anyone who grew up in the very same beach communities; or worked at mindless summer jobs, as Benji did, mastering the art of the waffle cone at the local ice cream parlor; or marveled at a father's delusional devotion to the art of grilling; or received their first kiss in the dying light at summer's end.
The difference being of course, not everyone who has these teenage memories can recall and document them with the fluidity and lyricism of a Colson Whitehead; a wizard whose prose compels the reader forward; spinning a less than amazing tale into a nearly riveting read.
- Hardcover: 288 pages
- Publisher: Doubleday; Stated First Edition edition (April 28, 2009)
- ISBN-10: 0385527659
- ISBN-13: 978-0385527651
Sag Harbor by Colson Whitehead
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