President Obama invited five of his favorite writers for a White House lunch during the final weeks of his administration. One of them was Colson Whitehead, a sign of the respect his work has earned over the past twenty years.
One word comes up frequently in a conversation with acclaimed writer Colson Whitehead. He says the word "weird" a lot.
Whitehead was raised by parents who were professionals. He went to the prep school Trinity and then Harvard. And he lives in the West Village with his wife and kids. An esteemed path — hardly the route of a weirdo.
On the other hand, he has long had a geeky love of horror films like 'Night of the Living Dead." "He’s a black man on the run and being chased by insane white people who actually want to eat him and destroy him which of course is the American experience," Whitehead said.
He's also got a quirky sense of humor, on display recently at the 92nd St. Y, talking about the origin of his latest book, "The Underground Railroad".
Whitehead has explored a wide variety of themes in his books, dating all the way back to 2002 when he won the Macarthur Fellowship, the so-called Genius Award.
"I'd written two books at that point, one about John Henry, one about elevator inspectors," Whitehead said. "For me it was someone saying you're a weirdo, keep doing your weird thing."
Colson Whitehead has never conformed to expectations.
He uses wit and his eclectic tastes to obliterate any box that others might put him in because of his race and talent.
"I wanted to talk about black culture and history but I didn't want to write, do it in a way anybody else had done it before," said Whitehead. "And so my first book is about elevator inspectors and has a very extravagant and baroque metaphor about racial uplift using elevators.
"The seventies were probably worse. I'm not sure but I think the eighties are a close second in terms of recent horrible decades."
There was an 80s coming of age novel, 'Sag Harbor'. 'Zone One' mined his love of the horror genre. And the noble hustle was a memoir about poker.
"I think if you sign me up, I'm a weird guy and you sorta signed up for that," he said.
Now comes 'The Underground Railroad', a novel about slavery, in which Whitehead reimagines it as an actual train underground. It is a novel 16 years in the making.
"I knew if it tried it then i would mess it up. I didn't think i was at a level talent wise to pull it off and then i didn't think i was mature enough of a person to treat the subject that the gravity required and the seriousness."
Whitehead has enjoyed plenty of previous success.
But this is different. The Underground Railroad won the National Book Award. It was on President Obama's 2016 summer reading list. And was picked for Oprah's Book Club.
It's drawn passionate crowds for readings at the 92nd St. Y and all over New York and the country. But with this success comes another expectation. Whitehead is occasionally asked to be a spokesman on race.
"I’m a teacher and I teach a fourth-grade class, one of my students touched the hair of a black student and we had a whole discussion about when you can touch people’s hair. What do you think?" one asked.
"'I was like well you shouldn’t touch people’s hair'. But also I’m not here to be racial etiquette spokesman."
His daily routine includes afternoon trips to buy groceries to make dinner for his wife and kids.
But in the morning and early afternoon, he's in the basement of his West Village apartment writing.
"I grew up in New York and there is always some sort of noise around, car honking ambulance, somebody being choked to death upstairs, so noise is always a part of my work."
His muse could be music, or a 24-hour cable news channel.
"The Misfits, The Sex Pistols and Prince and Funkadellic and Ella Fitzgerald."
"When I was writing John Henry Days in 2001 that was like my news book so I would write to NY1 and 1010 WINS all day."
Colson Whitehead grew up on the Upper West Side and spent summers in an African American enclave of Sag Harbor, in the Hamptons.
As a black teenager in New York in the 80s, there were inconsequential situations to negotiate.
"Can you be a black teenager and like Siouxsie and the Banshees and Run DMC?"
But there were serious situations as well.
Whitehead was 16 when he was handcuffed by police at an Upper East Side supermarket and brought before a white woman who had been mugged a few blocks away.
"I guess I was the first black teen they found and of course I’m now a likely suspect," he said. "Luckily she wasn’t one of these 'they all look alike' type people and was like 'no it wasn’t him' and there was older cop who was like this guy is total, he’s not a criminal, he’s a total whimpo."
His parents ran their own executive recruiting firm, and had two seemingly incompatible messages for their son.
"I definitely grew up with that expectation you get a straight job and represent the black race, uplift the race."
"Another part was institutions are inherently faulty because they are run by human beings who are faulty. And so don't worry paradoxically don't worry about what other people are telling you to do figure out your own path and it can be weird and eccentric."
After graduation from Harvard, he worked at the Village Voice, where he wrote about television, books and music — while trying to write his first novel.
"Writing about elevator inspectors and writing elevator 20 times a day and thinking this is the dumbest idea for a book ever, but I have no choice this is what I want to write."
"After I wrote my first novel — it's unpublished and everyone hated it — and I got an agent and I got 25 rejections, my brother-in-law was like 'so are you going to become a lawyer now?' I was like I have no choice I have to write the next one."
The publishers and the critics and the readers eventually got it and quickly learned to expect the unexpected from Whitehead — a writer beholden only to his latest idea.
"I'm trying to figure out the world and then hopefully if you do it right other people will come along with you."
His admirers would have it no other way.