This week in New York 2010: Whitney Biennial opens, Gigantic holds a launch party for Issue 2: Gigantic America, Anderbo Reading at KGB, Mary Karr talks with Philip Gourevitch, MOMA premieres documentary about Mikhail Khodorkovsky–Russia’s wealthiest man and one if its most controversial figures, Ted Conover reads, André Aciman talks to Paul Leclerc, and Sam Mendes directs The Tempest at BAM.

MONDAY 2/22: Author Mary Karr talks with Paris Review editor Philip Gourevitch about her process as part of the magazine’s Art of Memoir interview series. Mary Karr is the author of several books, including The Liars’ Club, Cherry and, most recently, Lit, which made The New York Times best books of 2009. Joe’s Pub. 425 Lafayette St. $20. 7:00pm.

Ted Conover reads from The Routes of Man, a spirited, urgent book that reveals the costs and benefits of being connected—how, from ancient Rome to the present, roads have played a crucial role in human life, advancing civilization even as they set it back. The Half King. 505 W. 23rd. 7:00pm.

Documentary Fortnight, 2010 MOMA’s International Festival of Nonfiction Film continues with Vlast (Power), 2010. USA. Directed by Cathryn Collins. In 2003, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Russia’s wealthiest man, was arrested at gunpoint on a Siberian runway. Having openly challenged President Vladimir Putin, Khodorkovsky was convicted, his oil company, YUKOS, seized, and his pro-democracy efforts curtailed. He remains defiantly imprisoned. In unprecedented interviews with Khodorkovsky’s family, his associates, and prominent politicians and journalists, director Cathryn Collins reveals how liberty and the rule of law have become casualties in modern Russia. Vlast (Power) takes an unvarnished look at the consolidation of power in an oil-dependent Russia, revealing a frightening picture of repression and retribution reminiscent of Stalin’s regime. In Russian, English; English subtitles. 88 min. MOMA. 11 W. 53rd St. 8:30pm.

The Tenth Muse with John Ashbery. Living legend John Ashbery carries on a long-standing Poetry Center tradition by curating and introducing an evening of readings by three less-established poets. Readings by Marcella Durand, Robert Elstein and John Gallaher. 92Y. Lexington Ave. @92nd St. 8:15pm.

TUESDAY 2/23: André Aciman and Paul Leclerc in Conversation. André Aciman discusses his new novel Eight White Nights with Paul Leclerc, President and CEO of the New York Public Library. André Aciman is the author of Call Me by Your Name, Out of Egypt, and False Papers, and is the editor of The Proust Project. South Court Auditorium of the New York Public Library (Enter on Fifth Ave. bet. 40th and 42nd Sts.). $25 ($15 students). 7:00pm (doors at 6:15).

The Films of Robert Gardner at Light Industry. In twenty-nine completed works, surveying the daily life and rituals of societies from every inhabited continent, Robert Gardner probes acutely at the delicate borders that have always defined documentary film—the porous and slippery boundaries between objective facts and their subjective telling. 177 Livingston Street. 7:30pm.

Craft Work with Colson Whitehead. Have an idea kicking around in your head for a story, but not sure where to start? Join the Center for Fiction for an intimate talk by best-selling author Colson Whitehead as he discusses his creative process and the art of fiction. Colson Whitehead is an award winning author of numerous books including John Henry Days and most recently, Sag Harbor. The Mercantile Library Center for Fiction. 17 E. 47th St. 7:00pm.

WEDNESDAY 2/24: Anderbo Reading at KGB. For one night online literary journal Anderbo descends on KGB to present six outstanding readers, poet Kathleen Kraft, Anderbo Fiction writers Kristen O’Toole and Erika Swyler, and Anderbo “fact” contributors Tove Danovich, Paul Vigna and Anne Fiero.  Anderbo (http://anderbo.com) was founded by author Rick Rofihe. KBG. 85 E. 4 (bet. 2nd and 3rd Aves.). 7:00pm.

Winter Anti-folk Festival 2010 continues at Sidewalk Cafe with the Lisps, Nan Turner, Dufus and Major Matt Mason.  94 Ave. A.

Filmmakers present films made in collaboration with their subjects using various techniques of participation, performance, and observation. Followed by a discussion with Patty Chang, Liza Johnson and participants in In the Air; Sharon Lockhart, Jeannie Simms. Organized and moderated by Sally Berger.

Selected Shorts: The Sixties. Take a trip to that swinging decade of questioning, experimentation, and change as actors Cynthia Nixon, Michael O’Keefe, Jill Eikenberry, host Isaiah Sheffer and Def Jam Poetry artist Staceyann Chin perform stories, poetry and nonfiction by James Baldwin, Joyce Johnson, Norman Mailer, Robert Lowell and an excerpt from Joan Didion’s classic essay “The White Album.” Symphony Space.

THURSDAY 2/25: 2010: Whitney Biennial opens. This year marks the seventy-fifth edition of the Whitney’s signature exhibition. While Biennials are always affected by the cultural, political, and social moment, this exhibition “simply titled 2010” embodies a cross section of contemporary art production rather than a specific theme. To underscore the idea of time as an element of the Biennial and to demonstrate the influence of the past on 2010, familiar and less well-known artists from previous exhibitions are brought together in Collecting Biennials, an accompanying installation. Through May 30, 2010. Whitney Museum of American Art. 75th and Madison Ave.

Antifolk Festival 2010 continues at Sidewalk Cafe with Brook Pridemore, Huggabroomstick and Crabs on Banjo among others. Sidewalk Cafe. 94 Ave. A.

Bulge, Glaze, Pause, Shock: Wayne Koestenbaum Lecture. Wayne Koestenbaum has published five books of poetry, a novel, and five books of nonfiction including The Queen’s Throat (a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist). His newest book, Hotel Theory, a hybrid of fiction and nonfiction, was published in 2007. 2960 Broadway, Dodge Hall, Room 501. Columbia University (@116th St.). 7:00pm.

FRIDAY 2/26: The Tempest directed by Sam Mendes. Back with its second season at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, this spring season, the Bridge Project presents two Shakespeare classics, The Tempest and As You Like It, both directed by Sam Mendes, acclaimed director of the films American Beauty, Road to Perdition and Revolutionary Road. See Saturday for an artist’s talk with Mendes. Brooklyn Academy of Music. 30 Lafayette Ave. 7:30pm.

SATURDAY 2/27: Gigantic Issue 2 Launch Party. Come celebrate the launch of Gigantic Issue 2, Gigantic America. Issue 2 features interviews with Lydia Millet, Adrian Tomine and Sam Lipsyte; new fiction from Robert Coover and Leni Zumas; art by Thomas Doyle and Thomas Allen; along with collectible biographies of famous Americans as written by, among others, Deb Olin Unferth, Michael Kimball, Clancy Martin and Stephen O’Connor. The release party will include short readings from Gigantic #2 contributors Deb Olin Unferth, Stephen O’Connor and Sasha Fletcher; a dance performance by artist Lydia Bell; an installation by Dinh Q. Lê; a special “surrogate” reading by Mike Topp in place of Brian Beatty; cheap drinks and all the fun and miscellaneous delights you’ve come to expect from things Gigantic. PPOW Gallery. 511 W. 25th St. #301. 6:30-11:00pm.

Artist talk with Sam Mendes and The Bridge Project cast. In a unique public conversation between director and actors, Sam Mendes and members of The Bridge Project cast will discuss the exceptional adventure that they embarked on, bringing audiences into their creative process. Brooklyn Academy of Music. 5:00pm.

SUNDAY 2/28: Metal Mad. An army of artists pay tribute to Heavy Metal. Giant Robot. 437 E. 9th St. Through March 3.

ART: Image of work by Michael Asher at the 2010 Whitney Biennial.

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News about notable happenings in New York can be sent to rozalia-AT-therumpus.net

Original Notable New York Illustration © André da Loba

Other images in order of appearance: Ecstatic Resistance (schema), 2009, by Emily Roysdon at the Whitney Biennial; still from Aki Sasamoto’s Secrets of My Mother’s Child, 2009 (detail) Performance and Installation at the Whitney Biennial; section from”Until I Find It,” a segment from an illustrated book based on the full-length animated film DIECI TESTE, with words by Leni Zumas and art by Luca Dipierro (the full segment will appear on Gigantic online on Monday 3/1).

Related posts:

1. Notable New York, This Week 1/25 – 1/31
2. Notable New York, This Week 12/14 – 12/20
3. Notable New York, This Week 12/7 – 12/13

MONDAY 2/8: Susan Sontag. PROMISED LANDS (1974). Susan Sontag’s third directorial effort and her only documentary, PROMISED LANDS scrutinizes the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict and the growing divisions within Jewish thought over the question of Palestinian sovereignty. Shot in Israel during the final days and immediate aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, it is undoubtedly one of Sontag’s most incisive examinations of contemporary Jewish consciousness, and she considered it her most personal film.With and introduction by artist Paul Chan. Anthology Film Archives. 32 Second Ave.

The Moth StorySlam! Theme: Love Hurts. 10 stories. 3 teams of judges. 1 winner. “This event always sells out.” Housing Works Bookstore Cafe. 126 Crosby St. $7. 7pm.

TUESDAY 2/9: Eat When You Feel Sad. A “Party-Night of Mayhem” to celebrate the release of Zachary German’s Eat When You Feel Sad (Melville House). Tao Lin, author of SHOPLIFTING FROM AMERICAN APPAREL, will join to co-host the event and interview German about his new book. Wine will be served. WORD. 126 Franklin St. 7:30-9pm.

Cabinet: The Art of Hypochondria. Brian Dillon, Cabinet’s UK editor, explores the lives of nine eminent malingerers—including Darwin, Proust, and Warhol—and the fear of illness that drove them to withdraw from the world. Science historian D. Graham Burnett (Princeton University) and literary historian Marina van Zuylen (Bard College) will join Dillon in a discussion of this most elusive of conditions. The evening will end with a Q&A with the audience. The Kitchen. 512 West 19th St. 7-9pm.

How To Score on Valentine’s Day on Howcast

WEDNESDAY 2/10: BOMB’s Winter Issue 110 Launch Party & Reading. Join BOMB’s editors for an evening of readings, conversations, and multimedia presentations by the contributors and translators for BOMB’s Winter Issue, dedicated to Colombia and Venezuela. Moderated by BOMB Senior Editor Monica de la Torre and featuring: Luis Molina Pantin’s narco-architecture photographs, and Videos by the Caracas-based team Nacimento/Lovera. El Museo del Barrio. 1230 Fifth Avenue @ 104th St. 6:30-9pm.

Harper’s Magazine Presents Love: A Rebuke. To coincide with St. Valentine’s Day, Harper’s Magazine presents: “Love: A Rebuke,” a reading featuring selections from the magazine and new work by Harper’s Magazine contributors Colson Whitehead, Heidi Julavits, and Sam Lipsyte. Housing Works Bookstore Cafe. 126 Crosby St. 7pm.

“Taking to Our Beds: On Hypochondria,” with Simon Critchley, Brian Dillon and Peter Dunn. This talk/performance will feature Dillon in conversation about culture and hypochondria while sharing a sickbed and hot-water bottle with philosopher Simon Critchley, author of The Book of Dead Philosophers. The invalids will be attended by psychoanalyst Peter Dunn. Cabinet. 300 Nevins Street, Brooklyn. 7-9pm.

THURSDAY  2/11: Vol. 1 Brooklyn and Gigantic Present: Greatest Three-Minute Rock ‘n Roll Story Ever. Musicians, writers and artists come together in a night of storytelling about “the greatest rock shows ever known.” With readings by Jami Attenberg, Justin Taylor, Kendra Grant Malone, James Yeh and Lincoln Michel. Plus a special set by The Wailing Wall. Bar Matchless. 557 Manhattan Ave, at Driggs Ave, Bklyn. 7pm.

MAN RAY on Film. In conjunction with the exhibition ALIAS MAN RAY: THE ART OF REINVENTION at The Jewish Museum, Anthology Film Archives will screen a program of the films Man Ray created or worked on during the course of his career. (You can also see some online here). 7:30pm.

Don Delillo reads at Book Court. 7pm.

RISK! OBSESSIONS: One Track Minds. RISK! is a show where people tell true stories they never thought they’d dare to share, live on stage, featuring some of the brightest actors, writers and comedians around. Featuring Guillia Rozzi, Juliet Wayne, Peter Lubell, Mike Daisey, Mike Showalter. Created and hosted by Kevin Allison of the legendary sketch comedy troupe The State. 92Y Tribeca. 200 Hudson St. $15. 7pm.

It’s Not You, It’s Me. Anti-Valentine’s Day Party with Jonathan Ames. Jonathan Ames emcees a round-robin reading of humorous, wise, bitter, and uplifting breakup-inspired poetry from this new anthology. Jerry Williams, Bob Hicok, Donna Masini, and Mark Halliday will read and discuss their love lives and their work at this Anti-Valentine’s Day Party! Powerhouse Arena. 7-9pm.

FRIDAY 2/12: Adam Haslett celebrates the release of his debut novel Union Atlantic. Haslett’s short story collection You Are Not a Stranger Here (2002) was a finalist for the 2002 National Book Award and the 2003 Pulitzer Prize. Book Court. 7pm.

SATURDAY 2/13: The Magnetic Fields perform at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Howard Gilman Opera House. 30 Lafayette Ave. 8pm.

SUNDAY 2/14: Akira Kurosawa’s RAN celebrates its 25th anniversary. Watch the iconic film in a new 35mm print. Film Forum. 209 W. Houston St.

ART: DAMIEN HIRST. END OF AN ERA. End of an Era, the title of Damien Hirst’s just-opened exhibition at the Gagosian Gallery, is also the title of the centerpiece work, a bull’s head in formaldehyde encased in a vitrine of glass and gold-plated steel that rests on a marble plinth. Or, perhaps a catafalque? The bull’s head, is both a reference to Hirst’s breakthrough work, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, the shark-in-a-tank that made Hirst a star, and the end of an era of his work that includes a series of tanked sheep, cows and cut-up calf. Also on display is an array of the work he’s done post-shark, including walls lined with medicine cabinets, dot-paintings and Cubic Zirconia. Gagosian Gallery. 980 Madison Ave. @77th St.

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News about notable happenings in New York can be sent to rozalia-AT-therumpus.net

Original Notable New York Illustration © André da Loba

Other images in order of appearance: Painful Memories/Forgotten Tears (Damien Hirst, 2008).

Related posts:

1. Notable New York, This Week 1/04-1/10
2. Notable New York, This Week 9/21-9/27
3. Notable New York, This Week 11/2 – 11/8

MONDAY, October 12, 2009 – SUNDAY, October 18, 2009

This week in New York, The New Yorker Festival hits town. And yes, while the “Humor Revue,” “About Towns,” and “Kaffeeklatches” seem to have been sold out before they were on sale, there’re still some good readings and “Screen Gems”  available, and a slim, if precariously so, window for getting tickets to sold-out events (see below) – and see a full schedule here; A Festival of Frightening Movies begins at Lincoln Center, and Spike Jonze week continues a the MOMA, in celebration of the Friday release of Where the Wild Things Are.

MONDAY 10/12: Spike Jonze: Award-Winning Music Videos, Short Films and Commercials, Part 2 (100 min.) Museum of Modern Art. 8:00pm.

Brian Evenson and Mary Caponegro read at McNally Jackson. 7pm.

Scary Movies 3, “A Festival of the Frightening,” begins at the Film Society of Lincoln Center and runs through 10/22. Monday night is zombie night with Night of the Living Dead and Dead Alive.

Binnie Kirshenbaum reads at the New School. 6:30pm.

TUESDAY 10/13: Reckoning with Torture – The ACLU, PEN American Center and Cooper Union host this event at which writers and artists along with a former U.S. military interrogator and a former CIA officer will read from recently released secret documents that have brought to light the torture and abuse carried out by the U.S. under the Bush administration since 9/11. Featuring George Saunders, A.M. Homes, Art Spiegelman, Jonathan Ames, Nell Freudenberger among many renowned writers and a special presentation by Jenny Holzer. The Great Hall at Cooper Union. 7 E. 7th St. 7:00pm.

CLMP hosts Periodically Speaking at the New York Public Library – An event series that presents writers from three influential lit mags returns to the NYPL: Vestal Review presents fiction writer Lincoln Michel, Low Rent presents poet Leigh Stein and Tin House presents non-fiction writer Montana Wojczuk.

Lucky Dragons and Rose Lowder: A Benefit for Showpaper – LA-based electronic outfit Lucky Dragons “whose participatory performances jam 21st century musique concrete with the fervor of a tent revival” will “play around” in dialogue with five films by leading French experimental filmmaker Rose Lowder. Light Industry. Tickets, “sliding scale” $5-$20.

WEDNESDAY 10/14: Lorrie Moore, whose novel A Gate at the Stairs was just released by Knopf, reads at Symphony Space. 7:30pm.

Garfunkel and Oates, the LA-based comedy duo, Riki Lindhome (My Best Friend’s Girl) and Kate Micucci (Scrubs), whose song “Sex with Ducks” caused a mild stir in the political blogosphere, perform at the Gotham Comedy Club. 208 W. 23rd. 6:30pm.

Daniel Johnston, the legend of lo-fi tape-recorded-in-my-parents-basement music performs at Highline Ballroom. 431 W. 16th. Indie-folk band The Dodos play at Bowery Ballroom. 6 Delancey St.

Nick Lowe - English singer-songwriter performs at City Winery. 9:00pm.

Victor Lavalle, author of Slapboxing with Jesus, reads at The New School. 6:30pm.

THURSDAY 10/15: Scary Movies 3 at the FSLC – director John Landis will appear in person to present his Lycanthropian classic An American Werewolf in London.

FRIDAY 10/16: Tickets to The New Yorker Festival can still be got on Friday from 12-4:00pm at Cedar Lake Theatre, 547 West 26th Street, or online here. Tickets will also be available for sale one hour before the scheduled performances.

The New Yorker Festival – “Fiction Night” is just that, a night of readings, many of which are still, surprisingly, available. Some highlights are Daniyal Mueenuddin and Salman Rushdie; David Bezmogis and Jonathan Franzen; Edwidge Danticat and Junot Diaz; George Saunders and Gary Shteyngart; Jonathan Lethem and Colson Whitehead; Joshua Ferris and Aleksandar Hemon; T.C. Boyle and Mary Gaitskill.

Where the Wild Things Are, the new film, an adaptation of Maurice Sendak’s children’s book, directed by Spike Jonze, and co-written with Dave Eggers, is released nationally. This is Jonze’s first feature film since Adaptation (2002).

Spike Jonze: Award Winning Commercials and Jackass: The Movie (2002). MOMA. 8:00pm.

Legendary punk singer Patti Smith performs with her daughter Jesse at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in celebration of the 50th anniversary of photographer Robert Frank’s collection “The Americans.”

SATURDAY 10/17: The New Yorker Festival – Saturday presents a kind of pu-pu platter of filmic/music happenings and specialty talks and panels. See Malcolm Gladwell give a talk on dogfighting felon Michael Vick, watch Alfred Hitchcock’s “Shadow of a Doubt” with David Denby, or listen to “conversations with music” between Sasha Frere-Jones and Neko Case, or Bon Iver. Some interesting panels include “New Math” that will likely deal with statistics, sports, politics and urban ethnography.

SUNDAY 10/18: The New Yorker Festival – Sunday at the festival is more relaxed, interactive and art-oriented with outings to the studio of Chuck Close and puppeteer Basil Twist, a “Humor Revue” with Woody Allen, George Saunders and Noah Baumbach, “Kaffeeklatches” (which somehow implies the subjects will have their guard down and maybe say things that will make you feel like you know them as people, or unintentionally reveal something too personal), like “Heroes and Antiheroes” with Donald Antrim, A.M. Homes, Gary Shteyngart and George Saunders; There’s “Radical Opera,” a panel at which Rufus Wainwright and superstar theater/opera/TV director Peter Sellars will tell you how blow-away opera is becoming and that it’s not dying, it’s just no longer Brunhildes in horns.

The Tag Reading Series – The “inter-borough, inter-state and nearing international!” reading series continues in Brooklyn: Jami Attenberg (The Melting Season) introduces Kristin McGonigle (New Yorker, originally from Philadelphia) who introduces our own Michelle Orange (Brooklynite originally from Toronto), who tags Mary Miller (who lives in Mississippi) who reaches back and tags Nicolle Elizabeth (Brooklynite originally from Boston), landing us safely back in Brooklyn. “They’ll be reading stories that got started by an overheard remark and an unfinished Fitzgerald story idea, about bad women with worse judgement, and an aging psychic.” The Cell Theatre. 338 West 23 St. (between 8 and 9 Aves). 5:00pm. $5.

Spike Jonze: Award-Winning Music Videos and Short Films, Part 1. MOMA. 2:00pm.

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Send info about notable things happening around New York to rozalia-at-therumpus-dot-net.

Illustration by André da Loba.

Related posts:

1. Notable New York, This Week 10/5-10/11
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“Labels bug me. My first ideal reader was a teenage version of myself; someone who might randomly come across my book and be changed by it, the way I was changed by so many books in that key time. Then I started publishing, and the people who came to see me read were so varied – old, young, black, white, redheaded, balding, etc. – that it seemed dumb to have a mental picture of my ideal reader. It’s a blessing if anyone reads your book at all. But if she or he is a “Young Adult,” great. With braces & a bad slouch, even better.” …more

Colson Whitehead is the author of the novels The Intuitionist, John Henry Days

**

The Rumpus Review of Sag Harbor

Reading Colson Whitehead’s work is a bit like looking at a completed Rubik’s Cube: you marvel at the construction—Whitehead’s sentences are surprising enough to give you a shiver of appreciation for the syntax, for the words that were spun into place—and then wonder how long it took to put it all together. One gets the sense that Whitehead, 39, who has already published five books (and won a MacArthur “genius grant” along the way), is the kind of guy who works so fast and with such cool dexterity that all you can do is shake your head and say, “Man…!”

Whitehead’s latest novel, Sag Harbor, is set in 1985 and features exquisite riffs on everything from Stouffer’s French Bread Pizza to U.T.F.O. to New Coke. For many in my generation, who came of age in the Reagan years, this sociological study of our childhoods will be hard to resist.

Sag Harbor is narrated by Benji Cooper, who looks back from adulthood on the summer when he was fifteen. Benji is black and attends a mostly white private school in Manhattan, but in summer he relocates to his family’s beach house on the East End of Long Island, where a community of African-Americans has vacationed for three generations. During the school year, Benji is often the only black person in the room, but in Sag Harbor he and his younger brother are surrounded by other “black boys with beach houses.” America may be obsessed with The Cosby Show, but Benji and his friends know that they still fly in the face of socio-economic stereotypes about race:

“Black boys with beach houses. It could mess with your heads sometimes, if you were the susceptible sort… You could embrace the beach part—revel in the luxury, the perception of status, wallow without care in what it meant to be born in America with money, or the appearance of money, as the case may be. No apologies. You could embrace the black part—take some idea you had about what real blackness was and make theater of it, your 24-7 one-man show… Act hard, act out, act in a way that would come to be called gangsterish… Or you could embrace the contradiction, say, what you call paradox, I call myself. In theory.”

In a series of set pieces, Benji and his friends embrace the beach part (hijinks in an ice cream parlor, a stealthy foray into a music venue) and flirt with the gangsterish (in one section they stage a disastrous BB gun war in the woods and Benji notes that, “For some of us, those were our first guns. Our rehearsal.”) But it is clear that Benji’s fight will be waged with a different weapon: words. In telling his story—contradictions and all—he opts to write his own identity.

Benji’s entire identity is hyphenated: a union of the traditions handed down to him by the older generations in Sag Harbor and the ones learned from his peers, black and white. This theme of double-consciousness is overt—Whitehead quotes W.E.B. DuBois early in the book—but it’s a double-consciousness shaped not only by race, but also the insecurities of adolescence. Benji and his teenage friends have a preference for literal hyphens as well, stringing together elaborate insults for one another (my personal favorite: “you fuckin’ Cha-Ka from The Land of the Lost-lookin’ motherfucker”) in a phenomenal display of “grammatical acrobatics” that is reason enough to read Sag Harbor.

Despite his “early-summer dream of reinvention,” Benji’s self-proclaimed “dork constitution” can’t keep up with the latest handshakes from the city streets (“Devised in the underground soul laboratories of Harlem, pounded out in the blacker-than-thou sweatshops of the South Bronx, the new handshakes always had me faltering in embarrassment”) and he’s more at home playing Dungeons & Dragons than chasing girls. On top of all this social anxiety, his parents’ marriage is miserable and his alcoholic father has a frightening temper. But for all Benji’s awkwardness and angst, we never really doubt that he’ll triumph in the end; his voice is too sure-footed to suggest anything else.

Whitehead’s previous novels examined race and identity using wildly original conceits: The Intuitionist is a noir detective story set in the feuding Department of Elevator Inspectors; John Henry Days is a postmodern fable inspired by the legend of John Henry; and Apex Hides the Hurt is a satiric parable about language and consumerism. All three were easy to admire, but their brilliant surfaces allowed no vulnerability, provided few cracks in which to get a foothold. He calls Sag Harbor his “autobiographical fourth novel” (like Benji, he attended private schools in Manhattan and summered in Sag Harbor) and in mining material so close to home he has written his most resonant book, his first foray into first-person narration. The result is a novel with a looser grip, less conceived and more keenly felt than its predecessors, best served not by its nimble cool but by its fumbling warmth. The scenes between Benji and his father, in particular, are so achingly good that I wished this conflict had been further explored.

With the exception of a small (and anonymous) stand he takes against racism at the ice cream parlor where he works, Benji is relatively passive, a relatively detached observer. And Sag Harbor doesn’t have a strong narrative arc, no major revelations arrive with the end of summer. This might lead to stasis were it not for Whitehead’s language, so powerfully elastic and rhythmic that it generates its own momentum. Benji’s voice is whip-smart and often as funny as a great stand-up act—coming from such a private family, the telling of his story requires a bit of swagger. That story is ultimately as affecting a treatise on race and inheritance as Barack Obama’s Dreams from My Father—but with all due respect to our President, this book is a lot funnier.

**

The Rumpus Interview with Colson Whitehead

The Rumpus: Benji, the narrator of Sag Harbor, comes from a family that believes in keeping its business private—merely talking about his childhood is an act of courage on Benji’s part. Did writing this “autobiographical fourth novel” (as you call it) feel risky in any way?

Colson Whitehead: Let’s get the boilerplate disclaimer out of the way—I overlap with Benji, and use my summer of 1985 as a touchtone for his experience, but you can’t make a one-to-one correlation between my life and his, blah blah, it’s fictional, blah blah and etc.

That said, when I started the book I knew I had to go “all-in,” as they say on those TV poker shows. I was going to dive into all that grisly and gruesome adolescent muck and try not to gag—if I didn’t, the reader wouldn’t see their own horrible squirming existence in Benji’s existence. Once I was up to my chin, it was easy to be truthful about other things—things I had experienced myself and could transform into something that would serve the story, and things I have witnessed in other people’s lives. I had a strict No-Flinch policy from the get-go.

Rumpus: The novel is set in the summer of 1985, when Benji is fifteen. Why did you select this particular summer in Benji’s life?

CW: I needed the boys to have a certain agency—they could stay alone in the house for days on end—but I also needed them to be clueless dolts. They needed to be in-between, both boys and men and neither, play into the double-consciousness that is so present in the book in different ways. Frankly, I’m most acquainted with what it is to be a teenager when we’re talking ‘80s teenager. Picking the exact year was a bit more random. I knew I wanted to use a lot of pop culture to filter their experience, and specifically wanted to use Doug E Fresh & Slick Rick’s paradigm-shifting single, “The Show/La Di Da Di”… which came out in 1985. I ended up using “The Message” and “Roxanne Roxanne” instead—I got more juice out of them—but the importance of “La Di Da Di” was part of the original thinking. Just kinda accidental.

Rumpus: Your fiction always features sharp commentary on pop culture. In this book, the hilarious commentary is part of Benji’s attempt to navigate a pop culture minefield—every brand and musical artist is loaded with associations about race and class—and fashion his own identity. Is Benji’s role as critic necessary to his survival?

CW: I think it’s important for everyone—but I think it’s when we hit the teenage years that we become aware of it. Is this uncool? Should I be more like them? What part of myself do I have to hide in order to fit in? What do I have to buy into in order to get past the bouncer of Club Normal? With Ben’s adult perspective, he can analyze the choices of his youth with a more detached and critical eye.

Run-D.M.C.

Rumpus: Benji samples from different sub-cultures. He listens to both Run-D.M.C. and the Smiths, for example. Are you conscious of sampling from different literary styles? Are there particular writers or genres that excite you as a reader?

CW: I wouldn’t say I’m conscious of it—it’s just how one works, it seems to me. One book may need this kind of sentence, another book might need another kind of structure, so maybe this year Raymond Carver might provide a nice example, and another year Thomas Pynchon might provide some clues on how to organize something. You use the right tool for the job; there’s no one “school” that provides all the answers. Writers I dig whom I probably don’t mention enough when people ask me what writers I like: Whitman, Ginsburg, Dos Passos. What the heck: Rod Serling.

Rumpus: Benji and his friends use language to prop themselves up and to project some kind of authenticity. There’s a sense that words are the most powerful things in this world, even more powerful than the boys’ BB guns or the punches that Benji’s father throws. Language is often transformative and empowering in your work—is this a theme you’ve consciously explored?

CW: I’m a writer, so that’s one of the foundational premises of my job. By finding the right words, I master my world; by finding the exactly right words, others can see that their world is identical to mine. We’re all made of the same stuff. In terms of the cussing, I was raised on Richard Pryor and George Carlin, so came to believe in the profundity of the profane. They’re word-drunk clown prophets of the tragic, cold-lampin’ with Beckett.

Rumpus: Now that Obama is president, do you think readers will find that “black boys with beach houses” is not the paradox that Benji and his friends were taught to think it was in the Reagan years?

CW: My publisher videotaped me walking around Sag Harbor, and The Stranger was nice enough to mention it on their blog. In the comments, some people believe that the video is a hoax–“There are no black people in Sag Harbor, I’ve been there.” So: the magic Obama dust has not yet transformed the nation into the post-racial utopia he promised during the campaign. He better get crackin’!

Rumpus: Detractors might say that this novel doesn’t have much of a plot. What would you say to those quibblers?

CW: It’s a novel without a strong plot. So what? Sometimes I do plot, sometimes I don’t; it depends on what the story needs. I didn’t want to go the usual coming-of-age route—find a dead body, witness a crime, accidentally knock someone off, horrible life-changing accident. Chicken Pox. I wanted to be true to the lesson of so many people’s summers—we may be a little smarter by Labor Day, but not much. The stakes are smaller, sure, but that’s how we actually live.

From a craft perspective, if you remove one element, you need to replace it with something else, give the reader something else tangible to hold on to. In Sag Harbor, Benji’s voice, situation and unique perspective is the structural element holding the book together. I almost hedged that last bit (“I hope Benji’s voice is enough to…”), but fuck it, I think I pulled it off, or else I’d still be working on it.

Rumpus: This book is dedicated to your daughter. How is her experience of Sag Harbor different from yours when you were growing up?

CW: People keep asking me, “You won’t let her stay all week by herself when she’s a teenager, will you?” To which I respond, “Hells no!” We used to leave the house at 10am and come back when the streetlights came on. Vanish all day. That doesn’t go on anymore. The kids out there now are really over-supervised. They wear bike helmets! But more important, there isn’t a whole gang of kids running around like there was when I was younger… it’s much more sparse, kids-wise. That kind of world doesn’t exist anymore.

**

You can follow Colson on twitter @colsonwhitehead.

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From the Colson Whitehead review/interview combo, coming tomorrow.