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I originally wrote about the novelist Colson Whitehead over a year ago and, for some reason, that essay has been my most popular piece to date. I return once more to address the ever intriguing personality of this singular American writer.
I recently sat in a section of Citi Field above my current station, in a seat priced by the seller to conform to the current ineptitude of my beloved New York Mets. I brought along three freshly constructed sandwiches, chips and bottled water as penance to a financial status that normally precludes activities involving the purchase of tickets. Sharing the mini shopping bag with the food was a trade paperback version of John Henry Days, a novel by Colson Whitehead. The book has floated around the edges of my life too long, taken up in spurts in hospital waiting rooms or during extended visits to the can. I don’t spend too much time in hospitals, or in doing my business, so this story of a weekend in West Virginia occupies a calendar period stretched to silly putty proportions over a space/time pothole.
It’s embarrassing for someone like me to admit being stalled on a single piece of literature. I’ve managed Proust, Bellow, and Vidal, to say nothing of Pynchon, with little of the turbulence that constantly bounces this book in and out of focus. Granted, it’s a long story; nearly four hundred pages of fine type and just at the perceptible limit that I set for paperback reading, to an overall thickness between Belgian waffle and a standard Carnegie Deli corned beef on rye. I somehow managed to negotiate Vineland in hardcover, so nothing else should feel too impenetrable. Yet, this book remains an incomplete examination, so I brought it along to the doubleheader, knocking down a few chapters during the train ride in and chopping off pages at a time between innings of the first game and between plays in the second. Three more chapters shifted to port on the ride home, leading me nearer to conclusion; nearer in a relative sense, like walking in the direction of a sunset.
There’s nothing wrong, from a structural standpoint, with the book. It isn’t as spirited, or as linear, as Whitehead’s first novel, The Intuitionist, but more autobiographical in its portrayal of J., a freelance journalist in the midst of running a professional marathon of invitation-only promotional assignments. The lone black among a group of peers, J. engages his white colleagues at the level of overgrown frat boys who treat skin color as an accessory to the grander object of employing their collective intellect to ridicule the subjects of their articles. The brief flashback to the author’s actual internship at The Village Voice provides a poorly disguised aside, but adds a bit of winking fun for the knowing reader.
The writing is pure Whitehead, flamboyant and exact, the flow of words metered erratically enough to keep eyes moving toward the next line, with descriptions piled forward to serve as backfill in those rare dull moments allowed for the reader to reflect. Colson Whitehead writes for himself first, and for other writers next. His own racial makeup is a consistent theme, but presents an impression more of isolation than solidarity. It’s easy to see why. If we produced short bios of him and me, headed by our first names and last initials, and played a game of Pick the White Guy, Colson’s list would be chosen ninety percent of the time over mine. It’s his unique personal history that moves him to pursue societal issues of racism at the individual level in his writing; this man, that woman, those children. If nothing else, his work speaks to the people who raised themselves to a higher place, using every available measure in our society, save for the unrelenting badge of overpigmentation.
Perhaps I’ve hit on the problem. The point of reference is unique – a black man who has transcended color in his own mind, but fully expects to have to excuse the rest of us our predilections. The only person reminded of in terms of this inner perception would be Frederick Douglass, a young slave who knew he was smarter than his overseers, smarter even than his owners. Douglass escaped, changed his name, turned orator and author, and eventually settled first in Massachusetts with his wife, and later in western New York, taking a leadership role within the abolitionist movement. His communication skills belied the expectations of people of any color for any man of color, let alone one raised a southern slave, and patronage from the northern elite allowed access to levels of a New England society where the only other black faces belonged to servants, cooks and nannies. Picture a possible scenario, beginning with a brief setup:
Two elaborately dressed Boston matrons meet on a wide boulevard. The elements of greeting etiquette at once established, they engage in more typically womanish gossip.
First Woman
Have you heard? The Clarkson-Parks are holding a dinner reception for Frederick Douglass.
Second Woman
Douglas? Is he the new conductor for the symphony?
First Woman
No, dear, Douglass the abolitionist. My goodness, you don’t know of him?
Second Woman
I have no interest in politics. Why should I care?
First Woman
Well, for one thing, he’s a Negro gentleman.
Second Woman
(Sneering) Oh, how mah-velous … a darkie guest of honor.
First Woman
I’m told he’s very wise and well-spoken.
Second Woman
Oh, pooh. My husband’s valet Jackson is blacker than a parson’s cloak and speaks as well as I do. Why not hold a reception for him as well? It all seems a bit odd to me.
First Woman
Really, Missus Broadsocket, such a comparison is appalling. Certainly your valet is not held at the same level of esteem as Mister Douglass. He stands as a symbol for the potential of his entire race, to say nothing of his forceful and intelligent arguments against the institution of slavery.
Second Woman
If you feel so strongly about it, why not hold a reception for him yourself? I would happily accept your invitation to attend.
First Woman
I thought you weren’t interested in politics.
Second Woman
Oh, I’m not, not in the least. Still, I am interested in observing the faces of your household staff watching you moon over a colored man.
First Woman
(Icily) Really … well … good day, Missus Broadsocket.
The reception began in the grand salon of the Clarkson-Park townhouse. The guests were attended by three white men in evening coats, hired by the host to avoid any unseemly impression. The guest of honor, Frederick Douglass, wore his hair thrown to one side like a crashing wave, while his style of dress, buttoned up gray and piped in black satin, reflected the air of a man unaccustomed to Back Bay propriety and unimpressed by its practitioners.
Douglass never spoke unless spoken to, either at the reception or during the dinner following. He didn’t need to initiate conversations – they were served to him incessantly throughout the evening. What he did not start he finished, dominating the field in discussions whose subjects ranged from Charles Darwin to Dred Scott to the imminence of southern secession.
As the evening progressed, Douglass found his perfect foil in the form of one Denton Muybridge, a dandy on the cusp of middle age, a womanizer living comfortably under the umbrella of a well-funded annuity. His presence at such functions was meant to honor a storied family line, for which he represented the final chapter. Douglass appreciated the younger man’s taunting wit, aimed as it was mostly in the direction of those obtuse individuals who took up causes strictly for the refreshments provided.
At the end of the dinner, the men retired in a group to the library, led by Clarkson-Park, while Frederick Douglass lingered in the dining room, thanking his hostess for the wonderful meal.
Muybridge
(Craning over the gentlemen to his rear) Come along, Mister Douglass. These men are not comfortable leaving you alone with their wives.
Clarkson-Park
Damn you, Muybridge. Try to behave as a gentleman and spare us these embarrassing comments.
Muybridge
I had no intention to offend, Clarkson. I was merely trying to protect the honor of our dear Mister Douglass.
The men sat and stood and wandered the tall room, surrounded by the great volumes of bound western thought and enveloped by the smoke of a dozen lit cigars of Cuban filler wrapped in Connecticut leaf. The conversation remained focused throughout on the aftermath of legal emancipation and the spectre of chaos in the South.
Clarkson-Park
Mister Douglass, as a lawyer I am painfully aware that the body of Federal law is unable to address the legal inequities of individual states, especially as they would apply to Freedmen. An enforced emancipation is bound to engender strong reactions in the legislatures and the passing of onerous laws that differ from slavery only in name.
Douglass
Freedom itself is the great hurdle. Once a human is released from bondage, the opportunity to contribute and play a part in a better life will present itself, as surely as it presents itself to white citizens every day. The Constitution is inviolable to that point.
Muybridge
What of our own Freedmen, Mister Douglass? We have had them among us here for nearly a century, as I am certain a population exists with you in Rochester. Are they truly free, or is it merely one’s state of mind that makes it so?
Douglass
The state of one’s mind need not be permanently fixed by conditioning, but I acknowledge that the ability to adjust differs in all people. It is not a malady unique to the colored man. We are all slaves, in some manner, to our past.
Clarkson-Park
This is so. My father practiced law, as did his father. It was never a matter of choice for me. At the age of eight, I knew what I was to be. In that respect, freedom was denied.
Muybridge
Poor Clarkson, your dream of being a coachman snatched at so young an age. For my part, my family always owned ships in trade with Europe and Asia and, for a time, do please forgive me Mister Douglass, in Africa. I was to be the owner of a great fleet.
Douglass
What happened to change that?
Muybridge
A great storm off the Newfoundland coast. My parents were en route to London with my two sisters. I was judged too young for such a journey, so was left behind, orphaned and in trust to my father’s business interests. When I came of age, I sold off the entirety of it. That, my friends, is true freedom. And you, Mister Douglass, are from abolitionist stock?
Douglass
(Laughing) No, Mister Muybridge.
Clarkson-Park
Muybridge … must you always engage decent persons with such cheek? I’m sure our guest is not interested in parading his enslaved lineage for your pleasure.
Douglass
(Looking directly at Clarkson-Park) My father was a white man.
The room fell silent for a moment, even the floor clock, and the wisps of smoke held position in the air as the span of a second stretched uncomfortably around the group.
Muybridge
What a coincidence, so was mine. What about yours, Clarkson?
Clarkson-Park
May we please return to more serious subjects? Mister Douglass has travelled a great distance and his time should not be wasted on frivolities.
Muybridge
Of course, Clarkson, that was so rude of me. Here’s a question, Mister Douglass, if I may. When you escaped, what was the aspect most likely to give you away?
Douglass
During my escapes, for there were many attempted, it was always my appearance that threatened success. I understand your point, Mister Muybridge. Our racial characteristics do confound any hope for a smooth road to full acceptance. However, for every day that passes, that much longer grows the road to a truly democratic society. Gentlemen, this is Boston. This is the heart of our movement. I expect to be challenged in other places, even in Rochester. But, here is where the faith in our cause, our just cause, must be resolute. The enslavement of human beings cannot be justified for any reason, and especially one as shallow as the level of temporary discomfort its eradication may bring.
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That went a lot longer than planned. I’m not even sure whether it made any sense in respect to the subject of Colson Whitehead, American novelist. In the end, all that exists within the universe is the product of our own perception. For me, that includes the confident hope that I can flip over the final page of a certain novel and find my perception of the world has changed. Then, it’s on to the next Whitehead novel, Sag Harbor, Lord willing I should live so long.
