John Henry Days

Building the railways that made America, John Henry died with a hammer in his hand moments after competing against a steam drill in a battle of endurance. The story of his death made him a legend. Over a century later, J. Sutter, a freelance journalist and accomplished expense account abuser, is sent to West Virginia to cover the launch of a new postage stamp at the first 'John Henry Days' festival.

John Henry Days is a riveting portrait of America. Through a patchwork of interweaving histories Colson Whitehead triumphantly reveals how a nation creates its present through the stories it tells of its past.

"Blithely gifted…an ambitious, finely chiselled work
JOHN UPDIKE

"The sumptuous writing has the structure and quality of music…A voice so intelligent and idiom so imaginative that it can lift a reader right out of his chair.."
NEW YORK TIMES

"Such is the buoyancy of his talent, and the protean assuredness of his prose, that the result it controlled, poignant, wittily observed and often gleefully comic."
MAYA JAGGI, 'Guardian'

"'John Henry Days' is funny, wise and sumptuously written."
JOHNATHAN FRANZEN author of 'The corrections'