Library Foundation Luncheon Features Colson Whitehead

Author Colson Whitehead

Colson Whitehead began his talk at the Library Foundation's annual fundraiser with these words: "I appreciate that the Foundation invited me to speak about critical race theory at this year's luncheon." I could feel the 400+ person crowd sit up a bit straighter. This was going to be interesting. But the next words out of Whitehead's mouth were "just kidding." Cue the (somewhat) relieved laughter. With this nod to the sorry state of Florida politics under his belt, Whitehead launched into a talk that was surprisingly funny. 

Genesis stories are always interesting, and Whitehead began by sharing his own. He clearly wasn't a kid whose passion was playing baseball and climbing trees. "I would have preferred to be a sickly child," he said, "But it didn't work out." Instead, he was a kid who stayed inside and read. A Stephen King fan from a young age, Whitehead envisioned writing Black versions of "The Shining" and "Salem's Lot." Happily, he found his own stories - eventually. 

Fresh out of college, Whitehead got a job at the Village Voice, where he worked for several years. It was during this time that he got his first break as a writer for -- wait for it -- "Growing Pains" and "Who's the Boss." He worked on the season finales of both sitcoms and calls them the "definitive work" of those shows. 

Whitehead wrote several novels before penning "The Underground Railroad," his first big hit. The novel won both the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It was also an Oprah's Book Club selection, which I feel certain put the book in more people's hands than all the lofty literary awards combined. "The Underground Railroad" was also adapted into a limited series that can be seen on Amazon Prime. 

Like many people, Whitehead thought the underground railroad was a real train when he was a kid. (Some people apparently still do. A woman at a talk he gave at Mar-a-Lago asked him about the engineering challenges of operating the train. You can't make this stuff up.) In Whitehead's novel, each stop on the railroad is an alternative version of American history. It's a story he'd thought about for more than a decade before his publisher said -- and please excuse the language -- "Giddyup, MF."  Whitehead thought words more along the lines of "That sounds like a compelling story that you should write" would have been more appropriate, but the encouragement did its job. (Note: This was one of several times Whitehead used language not typically heard in a presentation. I personally liked the choice, but it was a choice and I'd be interested to know about his decision-making process in this regard.) 

People are always interested in where writers get their ideas, and Whitehead shared some of his inspirations. He began thinking about "The Nickel Boys" after seeing a tweet about the Dozier School for Boys. The reform school was in Marianna, Florida, a town located a mere hour from where I grew up. The abuse that took place at the institution over its 111 year history was of epic proportions. After the school closed in 2011, a forensic anthropology study was conducted and more than 50 unmarked graves were found on the school's property. "The Nickel Boys" is not an easy book to read, and I have to think it was even a harder book to write. The novel earned Whitehead his second Pulitzer, and Time named it one of the best books of the decade. 

Then there's "The Intuitionist," Whitehead's first novel. I haven't read this one, so I was surprised when he said the inspiration was a segment he saw on "Dateline" about the hidden dangers of escalators. Hmm. Publisher's Weekly says the storyline "hinges on the friction between rival groups of [elevator] inspectors -- the Empiricists, who base their appraisals of elevators on careful observations, and the Intutitionists, who know the machines they work so well they can sense potential problems simply by standing inside one." I'm thinking there are broader concepts at play there. When an elevator plummets several stories after being approved for operation by an Intuitionist -- a Black female inspector at that -- things get even more complicated. I've added the book to my "to read" list. 

It was a great event, not only because it was exciting to hear Whitehead speak. To sit in an auditorium overflowing with people committed to our libraries was reassuring. And if some people were a bit uncomfortable with Whitehead's language or approach, that's okay. I'd go so far as to say that it's good to experience that discomfort on occasion. But I'll close here before I get up on my soapbox. I have a book to read.