Sag Harbor
Colson Whitehead
Prior to and during the Olympic Games, vehicle access will be restricted in Paris, so orders may take longer than usual to process.
''Ask, How long are you out for? and a cloud wiped the sun. The question trailed a whiff of autumn. All answers contemplated the end, the death of summer at its very beginning.''
Benji is fifteen and determined to reinvent himself over the course of three months at his family's Sag Harbor summer house. This novel perfectly captures the long, slow days of adolescent summers and the battles between freedom and boredom that come with them.
Whitehead's writing is (as always!) a delight, perfectly balancing lyrical insights with truly hilarious commentary. Read and be transported!
From the author of the Man Booker longlisted The Underground RailroadBenji spends most of the year as one of the only black kids at an elite prep school in Manhattan, going to roller disco bar mitzvahs, desperately trying to find his place in the social hierarchy. Then he spends his summers in the African-American community of Sag Harbor on Long Island, and is just as confused. He's way behind on the latest handshakes, baffled by new slang, and his attempts to be cool and meet girls are constantly thwarted by his extremely awkward inner geek, braces and a badly cut Afro.
It's the summer of 1985 and Benji is determined that this is the summer when things will change and he'll fit in. For starters, he'll be reinvented as 'Ben'. When that doesn't catch on, it's another summer of the perpetual mortification that is teenage existence.
