coming of age, fictional memoir, race in America, Long Island, New York, Generation X, 20th-century

This book is channeling Colson Whitehead's own mid-80s teenage years working at ice cream shops while vacationing/summering in Sag Harbor, NY. In an interview he says none of this is true but an incident with a BB gun near his eye -- an incident he shares with the main character Benji. But what a concept for a book: Sag Harbor, a summery town where most of the parents leave the teens on their own for the summers except for the weekends when the parents have time to visit. This scenario is just ripe for teen mayhem. I love the unique Benji in all his nerdery leaning towards awkward punk. I'm a bit sad his twin in spirit Reggie is missing for most of the book with all those shifts at Burger King. This is such a swift breeze of a summery book -- though the book does seem to be a bit too long for what it's going for. A bit shorter and it would seem like a nostalgic visit to an ice cream shop near the beach. But it's a unique perspective for a book. I do love that all of Mr. Whitehead's books are completely different. Somehow this is only the second of his books that I have read, though most of them be waitin on the shelves. ( )

Despite the fact that this novel is a description of a summer in Sag Harbor that does not have a plot, I enjoyed Colson Whithead's wry humor and warm pictures of people and events. It sounded like a autobiography. I had to keep reminding myself that this was a novel, which is a compliment to the author. I understand the people who were disappointed by the lack of plot, but if you keep reading without expecting the plot to start you find an incredible wealth of layers in which an author can portray the souls of a community and its members.
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This is Whitehead’s coming of age novel of appending summers at his family’s vacation home in Sag Harbor on Long Island – a traditional upper middle class black resort community. All the elements are here – the first jobs at tourist attractions, meeting girls, and trying to pass s older in order to get into music venues – only all of these with Whitehead are tinged with race that never seems to go away. ( )

Colson Whitehead became famous and twice Pulitzered for his historical fiction (The Underground Railroad, The Nickel Boys), but he has written in many different genres including speculative fiction (The Intuitionist) and even a dystopian zombie novel (Zone One). Sag Harbor falls squarely into the coming-of-age category, as a first-person narrative told by 15-year-old Benji Cooper, but with Whitehead’s excellent writing and thoughtful reflections, it often feels like a lot more. Benji’s family leaves New York every year to summer in the small African American enclave of Sag Harbor, and the story follows Benji through the summer of 1985. There’s not a lot of plot, but plenty of 1980s nostalgia, social commentary, and awkwardly funny teen moments to keep the pages turning. ( )