A review by melias6
John Henry Days by Colson Whitehead

4.0

In his 2001 review of John Henry Days, Jonathan Franzen* described it as “funny and wise and ... only rarely a page turner,” which is precisely how I feel completing it almost a month later. Unlike the propulsive, straightforward narrative of The Underground Railroad, Whitehead structures John Henry Days as a series of vignettes told from multiple perspectives, the first section following journalist J. and his colleagues attending the titular festival to celebrate the distribution of a John Henry stamp, and branching out from there in subsequent sections. These include reflections not only from periphery characters like mail clerks and innkeepers, but fictional accounts of those who composed John Henry folk songs over the years and, interspersed throughout, John Henry’s own narration leading up to the events of the legend. Each individual piece reads as a comprehensive, satisfying, deep dive short story that amounts to masterful world-building, but a world I was rarely excited about returning to whenever I put it down. Still, it’s literary and challenging in the best possible way, and worth a read for fans of the Pulitzer-winning Railroad.

*Franzen’s own The Corrections, along with John Henry Days, were shortlisted for the Pulitzer the year it went to Richard Russo’s Empire Falls. That’s quite a line-up.