If this were all “John Henry Days” had up its sleeve, it would be merely audacious. But Whitehead is just getting warmed up. The author drops in one character’s 10-page reminiscence about Altamont, the Rolling Stones and the Hells Angels in 1969, and then extends his narrative every which way with little vignettes that use the John Henry legend as a jumping-off point–a touchstone–to explore how pop culture subverts and destroys legitimate myths. And he does all this through the stories of blues singers, a black folklorist in the ’20s, a Tin Pan Alley song plugger, Paul Robeson and a young piano student on Harlem’s Strivers Row. The amazing thing is, he nearly pulls it off.
There’s no way he could, of course. But if this novel is a mess, it’s a grand mess, one of those stories where the getting there is all the fun. Plundering the past, eviscerating the present, “John Henry Days” is a feast for famished readers.
John Henry DaysColson Whitehead Doubleday
