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Lynne Perednia
, June 27, 2009
(view all comments by Lynne Perednia)
Growing up can be hard, confusing and, at times, downright dangerous. Those who get through their teen years with their psyches intact often look back at those days through rose-tinted lenses.
Such is the case in Colson Whitehead's semi-autobiographical novel. The summers his family spent being out there, as opposed to life in NYC, are luminously preserved in a series of vignettes that form a loose-limbed narrative in which the sum may be less than its separate parts. But it's a lovely look back all the same.
Whitehead's alter ego is introduced the summer that he and his younger brother quit being twins. Not much is made of this, except that it sets the stage for Ben to experience everything that happens through a singular lens. He is part of a group but can take a step back. He doesn't have to keep track of his little brother any more, although they do fend for themselves a lot during the work week while their parents remain in the city. They're not alone. They, and other teenage boys, find summer jobs, hit the beach, drool after girls and explore the world of increasingly dangerous weaponry. Whitehead doesn't make as much of this as he could, beyond noting that soon enough at least one of his friends will have a real gun.
And that's typical of the entire novel. Perhaps Whitehead worked so hard at making sure his semi-autobiographical novel is actually fiction that he didn't spend much time on things like plot or narrative arc.
But if, instead, SAG HARBOR is viewed as a series of vignettes on what it was like to grow up in a black neighborhood where the TV Cosby family resembled their own homes, then Whitehead's glorious use of language can be enjoyed for its own merits. And, when it comes to looking back at the summer one started to grow up, perhaps it's better to not try to assign an arbitrary plot to everything that happens.
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