Literary Fiction by People of Color discussion

We will start the discussion of Apex Hides The Hurt on November 1.

Just a reminder - the discussion for Apex Hides The Hurt will start on this coming Saturday, November 1. I'm looking forward to another good discussion!

Here's a little background from Seattle Arts & Letters for tomorrow's discussion.

Colson Whitehead

“[His:] work does what writing should do; it refreshes our sense of the world.”
—John Updike, The New Yorker

Incisive wit, big ideas, and a serious grasp on storytelling constitute a strong opening hand for any good writing, but Colson Whitehead holds a few more cards. His voice is seriously fresh, whip-smart, dry, melancholy, fluid, and full of light. His fiction is flush with eccentric characters spinning through mundane realities and regular guys and gals manhandling questions of social and psychological import. In his essays and criticism, Whitehead puts his opinions up front, dispensing with conventional throat-clearing and formalities, breaking the rules only because he knows them. His irreverent tone in his TV column for The Village Voice sees Norman Mailer standing behind him, and his love for the neighborhoods of his hometown in The Colossus of New York A City in Thirteen Chapters (2004) remembers E.B. White’s masterpiece Here Is New York.

Whitehead’s journalism has appeared in Newsday, Spin, Vibe and The Village Voice (where he was a pop culture critic for a couple of years writing about books and music and, eventually, television), The New York Times, New York Magazine, Granta, Harper’s, and Salon. His first novel, The Intuitionist (2000), won the Whiting Award for young writers with exceptional promise and was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award. The story of Lila Mae Watson, “the first colored woman in the Department of Elevator Inspectors,” who closes her eyes and detects mechanical troubles by “communicating with the elevator on a non-material basis,” examines the physical and philosophical nature of social progress. A writer for The New York Times Book Review concluded, “Literary reputations may not always rise and fall as predictably as elevators, but if there's any justice in the world of fiction, Colson Whitehead's should be heading toward the upper floors.”

Whitehead followed his debut novel with a stunning second: John Henry Days (2001). The book’s protagonist is journalist J. Sutter, who is sent to cover a festival dedicated to the 19th century folk-hero John Henry. Riffing on the Industrial Age and the Digital Age, the two times in recent history that time has been sped up so much that our conception of the world has fundamentally changed, Whitehead continues to explore the theme of identity in story and history. Winner of the New York Public Library Young Lions Award, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Prize, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize, and a New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice, John Henry Days established Whitehead’s place in contemporary American letters. He received the MacArthur “genius” grant the following year. His most recent book, Apex Hides the Hurt (2006), follows the nameless protagonist—a successful nomenclature consultant—on a job to rename the fictitious town of Winthrop. A post-modern spin around history, identity, and language—in language, of course.

Whitehead graduated from Harvard College in 1991. “The people who influenced me a lot in college,” he said in an interview, “when I first started reading the non-Dickens kind of Victorian novel of manners they foist on you in high school, were people like Ellison and Pynchon, stuff like that. Basically, I like the kind of sprawling American books that talk about the culture.” Basically, the kinds of books he has come to write. A native of Manhattan, Whitehead now proudly lives in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.

Colson Whitehead also has a new book coming out next Spring entitled Sag Harbor.

Whitehead skewered a lot of (sacred?) cows in this book. I think language and how we use it to our own advantage was the main thrust. But the thing that stuck with me most about this book was what couldn't have been more than 2 sentences in the book when he all of a sudden interrupted a conversation to admit that he had no idea what the white people around him were talking about. I thought I was the only one! That even though we use the same language, speak the same words, have the equal and sometimes superior educations, I have no idea what you're (white folks) talking about! And while I'm sure the obverse is true (remember "Its a Black Thing.you just wouldn't understand"?) the difference is that the white culture is the dominant culture, the culture in power, the one we as Black people must understand in order to be included.


Can anyone defend/explain why he decided to leave his protagonist unnamed? It only served to keep me confused on exactly whose voice was speaking...

I enjoyed the irony of leaving the namer of all things unnamed. The protagonist speaks at length about creating an image in people's minds by the name he gives to a product, a town, whatever. By remaining unnamed, he escaped an easy association. Rufus, Biff, Jamal, Jeremiah, T'Darien - all names that African American men have; all names which evoke an image. The namer escapes the label of a name.

With respect to naming, our protagonist says:

You call something by a name, you fix it in place. A thing or a person, it didn't matter - the name you gave it allowed you to draw a bead, take aim, shoot. But there was a flip side of calling something by the name you gave it - and that was wanting to be called by the name that you gave to yourself. What is the name that will give me the dignity and respect that is my right? The key that will unlock the world.

I though that this was an excellent book. For a short book, it touched on so many ideas, including the issue of naming and who names something, the danger of "hiding the hurt" rather than dealing with it, the historical viewpoints of the interaction between Blacks and Whites represented by the two Black leaders called "the Light" and "the Dark" - I could go on for a while. He also brought in humor with the contrast between the Winthrop image and the reality of Albie Winthrop, as well as the power struggle between the protagonist and the housekeeper. I really enjoyed this book and it certainly is though-provoking.

I agree completely about the naming issue. The piece which spoke to me most powerfully about the book, and that made the most sense in leaving the protagonist nameless is the difference in the function of the given name (which Mina excerpted above) and the power of the true name. Knowing the true name of a thing gives you a direct line to the power of that thing. And a big part of this story was the protagonist figuring out his own true name. Just as he eventually finds the true name of the town (even though he was only looking for a given name). It would have been a cheat for Whitehead to let us go through the book using the protagonist's given name.

It was interesting to me though, that even though finding a true name can be powerful, it can also be dangerous or a bit lunatic. The namer is identifying his colleagues by his belief of their true names at exactly the moment that he is febrile and delirious with infection. Isn't this the flip side of "hiding the hurt?" Ripping off the bandage and facing the truth of wound?

I do wonder, though, why Whitehead didn't choose to use the first person. The "he's" did get confusing during some passages, and coming from an "I" stance seems to make sense in a story so much about the identity of a thing and our ability to to know, label, make understandable. But maybe that was exactly the point.

Howdy Folks! I agree that this was an excellent book. I'm a big fan of Colson Whitehead - he gives me hope that contemporary black writers are still capable of producing complex, engaging literary fiction.

With regards to the unnamed protagonist, I think a good argument can be made that Apex is working within the tradition of Johnson's Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man and Ellison's Invisible Man. All of these black male characters are unidentified by name and tell their stories as a confession of sorts, revealing the secrets of their identities from the safety of anonymity.

But as with the passage Mina quoted, I think it is also evident that Whitehead's protagonist is unwilling to allow us (and himself?) to draw conclusions about his personality, background, or identity through a single name.

Instead he allows other "names" to indicate how he is interpreted and misunderstood by others - the university that gives him access to privilege, his title as "nomenclature consultant", his awards. Even his physical appearance invites a kind of naming that can't quite capture who he is.

Hey Rashida, that's a great question. Why didn't he use the first person? Both of the texts I mentioned as "influences" by Johnson and Ellison use the first person... Whitehead definitely departs from tradition in that respect. (Even Erasure was first person.)

I get the impression that Whitehead wants to control the reader's access to the protagonist's deepest thoughts and motives. I think the third person perspective not only creates suspense, but also reinforces the idea that we are always seeing him (and "naming" him) through the eyes of others.

I agree, though, that it was confusing at times!!! I'd love to hear what others think about this technique...

I get the impression that Whitehead wants to control the reader's access to the protagonist's deepest thoughts and motives.

I agree, Qiana. We are not shown our protagonist's deepest feelings; we don't even specifically know why his amputated toe has affected him so profoundly. I thought that this approach worked well in this book.

I also liked his use of the true name being a source of power. In some cultures, the name which you are called publicly is different from your true name, which is kept a secret. Unearthing the true name of the town from its hidden history was a nice twist.

I think Whitehead also purposefully left a lot of descriptive elements out of the book at least in the beginning. It took me while to figure out not only the protagonist but the other characters as well. When he finally revealed that the Mayor was Black and related to the Black founders of the town it was like a whole new perspective on the story opened up.
There were a number of such shifts throughout and also many comic juxtapositions. Such as the fact that he was supposed to be this Ivy league bespoke suited Madison avenue type but he really didn't feel at home until his room was rank smelling and week old unclean. The ensuing struggle with the housekeeper was hilarious. And though his run ins with the bartender (Muttonchop) were comical at times I never could figure out why there was so much antagonism. Just because he was always there working? He even makes sure to give him the finger before he leaves town...maybe I missed something.

I kept looking back, Bill, as I began to figure out that the mayor was Black. I kept thinking that I had missed it, but Whitehead always seems to keep a card or two in his pocket.

The point of the mayor being Black made me think that Whitehead was playing with our own perceptions and what we're offered in the mainstream. The reason why Apex sold so wonderfully in the first place was the recognition that "flesh" is not the color of most of the world.

When the mayor is first described, he does not mention her race. He then describes Lucky and explicitly says, "the white man." This set off bells for me. I then reread the description of the bartender and noticed that Whitehead never names his race, but does speak to his afro with grey at the tips. I went back to the mayor, said "oh my goodness, she's Black," and automatically felt a bit ashamed of myself that as I painted the image of her in mind, I had made a white woman that I had to put the Black onto. It didn't feel good.

Most things that are read describe people, don't mention race, and the person described is white. Anyone of another race will be automatically labeled as such. "People" therefore means white people. People of color become the exceptions and anomalies. Witness barbie dolls, bandaids, stockings, advertising campaigns, and the classic literature of the world.

Whitehead flips this around in his book, and I'm sure it's intentional. I think that every character is described as white, or else they are Black and it is not mentioned. (The librarian and Albie are immediately labeled)

The only characters that I remained perplexed about was the couple he met in the bar.

Exactly right Mina and Rashida. I automatically assumed the mayor was White. And then he slowly revealed or (we slowly perceived) that she was Black and the story changed.

I was interested in Whitehead's somewhat ambivalent feelings about Quincy, the protagonist's Alma Mater. Since Whitehead is a Harvard graduate, I would guess that the feelings of the protagonist mirror his own. The protagonist seems contemptuous of all of the pomp and circumstance, but still willing to use the advantages that come with an Ivy League education.

I've got to say that I would understand completely if Whitehead feels that way about his alma mater. Speaking from personal experience, there is a war between using and valuing what you've gotten while not reinforcing the hierarchy that made it so valuable in the first place. Does that make sense? One way I've chosen to deal with this is to work for others. Whitehead is doing that too, by bringing us these writings. That is my intensely personal lens that I've put on it, though, so feel free to disagree.

Put this way, though, I don't really understand our protagonist's aversion to the school. I think because of the limited access to his inner-self, I initially read him as much more shallow then he is. I think the school piece is just one more fit to the puzzle of why the name he chooses fits both the town and his life to this point. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

What's everyone's interpretation as to why even with the naming of the town and the epiphany experienced by our narrator, his foot hurts more than ever as he goes forward?

Gotta take a moment to celebrate for PRESIDENT OBAMA!!!!!!!

And, in keeping with our discussion here, you all may be interested to know that Colson Whitehead wrote a humorous essay in the NYT about the election called: "Finally, A Thin President"

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/opi...

It made me chuckled a bit, but mostly I think Colson should stick to what he knows best....

Ahem, okay. Now that I've gotten a bit of Obamamania out of my system....

William, I'd love to talk more about "Muttonchop" and his crazy wife, the housekeeper. Their exchanges are so odd and, while his inability to make a connection with the bartender seems to reinforce his outsider status, I think there's more there... And his battle with the cleaning lady? Is it a matter of respect that he lacks for these two folks who are clearly the engine that makes the hotel run smoothly? Why are they so suspicious of each other? And why does he give Muttonchop the finger before he leaves? The antagonism is weirdly unresolved...

Rashida, my thoughts on the last line "his foot hurt more than ever" also speak to Whitehead's style of leaving certain aspects of his character open and unresolved. Whitehead doesn't seem to like neat, happy endings. And too, I think that by the end, the wound on his foot is like a battle scar that serves as a constant reminder of the self-inflicted pain and suffering caused by his denial.

I love how Whitehead reconfigures the power of naming in our consumer-driven age. The notion that "to have a name imprinted along the bottom of a Styrofoam container: this was immortality" (5) is such an awesome contradiction and critique of our society. With Styrofoam being, by nature, disposable, and yet it takes so long to decompose. Would you want your name to be remembered...if it was on a piece of trash?

My feeling about Muttonchop and his wife goes back to the idea of the protagonist not wanting to be known by others. Muttonchop is a working class Black man on his own territory and would probably see the protagonist as an outsider of a type he'd seen many times before - a Black man like himself, but brought in as an authority on something he knew nothing about. The protagonist would have to prove himself to a man like Muttonchop. The feeling that Muttonchop could see him in a way that the white folks with whom he usually interacted could see him probably made our guy very uncomfortable.

I think that his interaction with the housekeeper was very territorial. He was preventing her from doing HER job in HER hotel, and she was not going to put up with it! He wanted to control what he considered his space, reducing it to comfortable chaos if he wanted to, and he wanted no interference. But there was no way on Earth that he would win that battle.

Perhaps Muttonchop is the physical manifestation of the psychic wound that Apex is hiding. The inability of an Upper Middle class highly educated man to connect with the blue collars of his race. Or to really empathise with the dirt poor founders of the town. Although he did come around a bit in the end I don't think all the pain of the situation was completely exorcised and thus the continuation of his pain even after completeing his assignment.

He seemed to live in a mythical place such as the place he descibes in his Ehko (Lego) land where there are no alleys for folks with bad intentions to skulk and gather. No place for Muttonchop or Light or Dark in there. Almost every thing in his self described life comes together easily. In a snap, like legos, like the way he can rattle of new names and concepts. He doesn't really have to try. (Every time I see an Infinity Q45 now I think of his telling his former boss to "Give them a Q" and geting paid exceedingly well for that.) But even Ehko land changed and human representatives were painted yellow and brown until finally the original pre-diversity land was reintroduced as "Classic".

Absolutely, Bill. I thought that his desire for a very messy environment controlled only by him was a reaction to the artificial and sterile life he lived in the world.

You guys are on point! I love your take on the Lego land: No place for Muttonchop or Light or Dark in there.

Okay, and every time I see an ad for this product:

http://abilify.com/abilify/home/index...

I can't help but laugh out loud thinking about this book.

Anyone care to share favorite quotes from the novel? Or a favorite scene?

I'm always fascinated by how readers rate books comparatively, so I'd also be interested in hearing how you might complete this sentence:

Apex Hides the Hurt is better than [book title:], but not as good as [book title:].

What do you think?

This is an easy quote, but one that I liked:

Let lesser men try to tame the world by giving it a name that might cover the wound, or camouflage it. Hide the badness from view. The prophet's work was of a different sort.

Freedom was what they sought. Struggle was was what they had lived through.

.....They will say: I was born in Struggle. I live in Struggle and come from Struggle. I work in Struggle. We crossed the border into Struggle. Before I came into Struggle. We found ourselves in Struggle. I will never leave Struggle. I will die in Struggle. (pp. 210 - 211)

I'm really bad at comparative rating of books. I tend to judge books on how well the author accomplished what he or she set out to do. By that standard, Whitehead rates very highly, in my opinion. But he is such an original that I can't figure out someone with whom I can compare him!

That's a great quote, Mina! I realize that he's referring to Field as the "prophet" in that quote, but considering how the protagonist ultimately decides to revive the name Struggle, I wonder if he doesn't see himself a prophet too?

I have a few favorite quotes - here's my first (it's kinda long)!

Colored, Negro, Afro-American, African American. [Gertrude:] was a few iterations behind the times. Not that you could keep up, anyway. Every couple of years someone came up with something that got us an inch closer to the truth. Bit by bit we crept along. As if that thing we believed to be approaching actually existed.

...But there was a flip side of calling something by the name you gave it - and that was wanting to be called by the name that you gave to yourself. What is the name that will give me the dignity and respect that is my right? The key that will unlock the world.

Before colored, slave. Before slave, free. And always somewhere nigger.

What was next? In the great procession. Because things never remained still for long. What will we call ourselves next, he wondered. If he knew what was next, he'd know who he would be." (194)

That was exactly my thought about the "prophet", Qiana!

I loved the quote you chose also. Since I am the age that I am, I occasionally heard "colored" as a child, but the earth-shaking change was from "Negro" to "Black". And the main point was to name ourselves and reclaim who we were. We're still trying to find "the key that will unlock the world."

As if you needed one more testimony to the power of a good book, I just wanted to relate how Mina and I's favorite Apex quote has actually effected me. I found myself repeating, after a week filled with difficult situations at home and work that, "I was born in Struggle, I've lived in Struggle, I will never leave Struggle, (to paraphrase and make it my own) but I will die in Peace." This little mantra did wonders for my perspective and immediately ratcheted down the tension and stress. A wonderful little gift from Mr. Whitehead.

Wow, that's powerful William. I'm sorry to hear that you've had a bad week, but I agree that a good book can go a long way to changing your perspective. There is a line from The Known World that I say in my head a lot when I'm feeling doubtful and insecure: "We are all worthy of one another." In any case, here's hoping that this week is a better one!