Event Review: An Evening with Colson Whitehead
“Crooked stays crooked and bent hates straight.”
On Friday, July 21, 2023, Midtown Scholar hosted a vibrant evening of conversation with Joseph Earl Thomas and the celebrated author Colson Whitehead at the Whitaker Center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
Joseph Earl Thomas is a writer with an MFA in prose from The University of Notre Dame and is currently a doctoral candidate in English at the University of Pennsylvania. An excerpt from his memoir, Sink, won the 2020 Chautauqua Janus Prize. Joseph Earl Thomas facilitated a literary conversation with Whitehead to unpack his work and writing process.
This event marked the release of Colson Whitehead’s latest book, Crook Manifesto, the sequel to his popular crime novel, Harlem Shuffle. Whitehead is also the author of The Intuitionist, John Henry Days, The Colossus of New York, Apex Hides the Hurt, Sag Harbor, Zone One, The Noble Hustle, and most notably, The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad, which both earned the Pulitzer Prize.
Whitehead donned brilliant yellow pants to match the cover of his book (an unplanned coincidence he later explained) as he began the evening by reading an excerpt from his second book in the Harlem Trilogy, careful to avoid any spoilers—a difficult task with this text. His voice descriptively evoked the flavors of a fried chicken joint in Harlem. Alliteration and sensory details soared as he read: “A refreshing scorpion spike of heat lay hidden in the collards, and the mac and cheese was a symphony of competing textures, but the chicken was divine, fried in the very skillet of heaven.” Whitehead’s prose is poetic and engaging, inviting readers into the smells, sights, and sounds of Harlem.
Crook Manifesto returns to the character of Ray Carney, furniture store owner and ex-fence, whom readers first met in Harlem Shuffle. The story is full of crime, corruption, and racism, as it continues to follow Carney through the years 1971, 1973, and 1976, in a three-part structure similar to Harlem Shuffle.
As Joseph Earl Thomas began to discuss Whitehead’s novel, he posed a question regarding the reconciliation of different worlds, a prominent element in Whitehead’s work. This opened a dialogue with Whitehead in which he said, “the line between crooked and straight dissolves” in Crook Manifesto. Readers are confronted with the question: Who is a “real” criminal? The title comes from the character who represents a hardened criminal, Pepper, and his idea of a “Crook Manifesto,” or “The code of what a criminal will and will not do.”
As Joseph Earl Thomas and Colson Whitehead talked through Crook Manifesto, Whitehead also addressed how his text confronts the reality of the seventies in pop culture and the Black community. He includes Blaxploitation films in his text and doesn’t shy away from social commentary. As Whitehead uncovers the seedy dealings of his characters, he explores larger questions of identity: Can a person integrate the different parts of themself? What happens when/if a person lets out their “secret self?”
Toward the end of the evening, Whitehead answered some questions from the audience and his humorous personality shined. When it comes to the ever-important question of his writing process, he explained that he aims to know the beginning and the end of his stories quickly, while the middle can be fuzzy. Whitehead said, “It’s hard enough to find the words,” so he aims to know what happens early in the process. He tries to write eight pages a week, rather than write every day. He said, “Writing every day feels like an imposition on my lifestyle.” I found myself laughing out loud with the audience at his honesty.
Whitehead noted that he is continuously learning and hopes his writing is always improving—a reminder that even writers of best-selling novels are still working on their skills. He also stressed how whatever he is writing is for him. As writers, we can get so caught up in what other people want to hear, that we forget what we want to write. I think we could all take some inspiration from Colson Whitehead to go to our computers or notebooks and write the stories we need to craft for ourselves.
