Apex Hides the Hurt »

Colson Whitehead is the award-winning author of several novels, including The Intuitionist and John Henry Days, as well as a collection of essays about New York City. His fiction, criticism, and reviews have appeared in several publications, such as The New York Times, Harper's, and Granta.

The town of Winthrop has decided it needs a new name. The resident software millionaire wants to call it New Prospera; the mayor wants to return to the original choice of the founding black settlers; and the town’s aristocracy sees no reason to change the name at all. What they need, they realize, is a nomenclature consultant. And, it turns out, the consultant needs them. But in a culture overwhelmed by marketing, the name is everything and our hero’s efforts may result in not just a new name for the town but a new and subtler truth about it as well.

The Washington Post - Gideon Lewis-Kraus

Colson Whitehead's third novel, is so deceptively simple that it risks sounding like just another skirmish in the ongoing conflict between young, cerebral novelists and our consumerist culture. Whereas Whitehead's John Henry Days was a sweeping and formidable campaign of realistic satire, it's tempting to regard this new novel as a minor and predictable allegory. The book, however, deserves a better reading than that.