Sag Harbor

I loved this story for is description of the life of one child and his individual "black" experience. This book personifies the duality of being black and being middle or upper middle class. This portrays the constant struggle that occurs when having to choose between being who you are, and becoming (or fighting) what the world wants you to become. this book is a tale of dichotomy, assimilation, repression, self-awareness, and growth. A good read if you are a child a child of the 80's, and can relate to the jargon.

Do you have that special place from your childhood? The one that will always be your first love? For Colson Whitehead, in his "autobiographical" novel Sag Harbor, this place is his family's beach house on Long Island. Sag Harbor covers the teenage summers of Benji ("Call me Ben") as he navigates those painful years of both discovering and inventing who you are, where a single failure can allow others to define who you are without your permission. In the book, Whitehead creates a sympathetic character who is real, who we can associate with, who we can project ourselves onto. And that is his success. By the end of the book, we are thinking not of Sag Harbor but of our own childhood, of our own "beach house" where we escaped our lives and could be who we wanted to be, but ended up being even more of ourselves. Structurally, Sag Harbor is not driven by plot. Although it follows the events of a summer, this is more a device for us to learn about Benji, for Whitehead to show the arc of self-discovery through the events. This can - at times - slow down the novel. But the author's eloquently sparse style keeps it from becoming a burden. He has gathered anecdotes and arranged them in an order that lets us see the progression without showing us the end. A good book.

I had a hard time figuring out what to rate this book. I agree with the reviewers that were disappointed with it's lack of plot, tension, conflict, or any similar driving force. There is one scene where the father is bbq'ing on the beach and it feels like it is building to something, but I don't think it ever did, other than the fact that the chicken didn't turn out too well that day?? The narrative meanders along and at times the descriptions are so long that it feels indulgent and calling out for an editor. This is most apparent in (but unfortunately not limited to) the scene where the main character describes all the types of people that come into the ice cream shop where he works; it goes on for many pages (I read it on kindle so not I am not sure how many, just too many) and it works for a few paragraphs before it just gets annoying. I also found some parts of the book rather confusing. It would jump ahead to the "present time" and say how things worked out or talk about subsequent or previous summers and then, I guess, go back to the particular summer that was the focus of the book. But I wasn't always sure about this, what age the Benji character was, what the year was, and where all the stories fit in relation to each other. Still, I found many of the stories to be very funny. I would remember them later and have my husband read particular passages because I thought he would also find them funny. Overall, I liked the characters and the stories and the writing, but it bored me in between these funny stories. It wasn't the kind of book I couldn't put down or wanted to keep reading after my subway ride was over, walking down the street with it, trying not to get run over, like I have with other books. I actually read it during a long "vacation" weekend and even with little else to do I didn't always pick it up when I could. So in the end, I suppose three stars is about right. Maybe 3.5 if I had the option - because I do think it's well-written and the characters are mostly likeable and there are some very funny bits and some relateable pieces. I don't consider the days I spent reading this book to be a waste of time, but having read many good things about this book, I expected more.

After all reading all of Whitehead's books, I was not sure about the premise of Sag Harbor. It didn't exactly appeal to me right away. Yet once I was swimming in his prose, I was laughing and "hmmming" all through out my commute. He has a way of writing that makes the most mundane things worth reading about. This writing in this book is so good that you could read it over and over and over again and not grow tired of it.

Benji Cooper is the loveable loser with whom we can identify. Benji and his brother Reggie are spending the summer mostly alone at their family's beach house at Sag Harbor. He is at that awkward age for many teenage boys when the desire to be cool and fit in doesn't always match reality. Everytime I thought Benji was making progress, something happened that left him short. Take the time when he gets his first kiss and seems about to get more than that and all goes wrong. Or his frustration at his summer job at Jonni Waffle. I went through some similar experiences only a few years earlier than Benji (the book is set in 1985), so many of the cultural references were familiar. Some reviewers have disliked this book because of its lack of plot, but I think they just don't get what Colson Whitehead is doing here. He is painting a portrait of the black teenagers who happen to belong to families with summer beach houses and seem to not quite fit into any culture (black or white). The TV dinners, BB gun fights, and the grilling father were just a few of the elements that made this such a captivating read. I can only suspect that Benji will return next summer to Sag Harbor a bit wiser if not any luckier.

Required reading in a AL class and reminded me of my own childhood in the 80s. You soon forget that all this is fiction and get in the car with the boys to the beach, and as a reader, you can almost smell the waffles and taste the ice-cream. The story drifts along as one might through a long summer vacation from school without much drama or pivotal events (discounting the 'gangster' chapter), yet at the end, the characters and the reader mature. Great story telling.

Perfect condition, quite happy with it.

I really enjoyed reading this story of a boy remembering his beach summer holidays and his childhood as a relatively privileged but troubled boy. I think it sagged (inadvertent pun) a little in the end, but I was fond enough of the characters to carry on. The authorial voice was convincing and evocative and as long as you don't mind a book that meanders it's an excellent read. I would recommend it.

You could a!most be there with the kids bored and looking for mischief in the long summer in the Hamptons. I enjoyed most of this book but it wouldn't be for everyone.

Not what i expected from a Booker winner. Disappointing.