Sag Harbor (novel)

Last updated
Sag Harbor
SagHarborNovel.jpg
First edition
Author Colson Whitehead
LanguageEnglish
Publisher Doubleday (HB) & Anchor Books (PB)
Publication date
April 28, 2009
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint hardback
Pages288 pp
ISBN 0-385-52765-9
OCLC 213766008

Sag Harbor is a 2009 novel by author Colson Whitehead.

Contents

Sag Harbor takes place in Sag Harbor, a small village in the exclusive Hamptons on the east end of New York's Long Island. The village of Sag Harbor is on the bay side (northern part) of the South Fork of the tip of Long Island, and an old whaling port where several African-American families have bought property over many years. As Whitehead says, one comes "out" to Long Island from New York City. Then the summer vacation can begin. (The author also mentions the ocean beach, in East Hampton, where he and his friends rarely go. It is a predominantly white area, and blacks and whites do not mingle.) The novel's main character is Benji, an African American teenager spending the summer in this black enclave of the predominantly white and close-knit town along with his brother Reggie. Set in 1985, the novel touches on themes of race, class, substance abuse, and commercial culture. [1]

Plot

School's finally out for the summer and the return to Sag Harbor is in full swing. Teenage brothers Benji and Reggie Cooper escape their majority white preparatory academy in Manhattan. Still clad in Brooks Brothers polos and salmon colored pants, the pair re-meet all of their friends. Like most well-to-do kids at their families' beach houses during the summer, most of the teens in Sag Harbor go almost the entire season with virtually no contact from their parents (aside from occasional visits on the weekends). Benji and Reggie get summer jobs to cover basic expenses, because with no parents there's no spending money. They tool around on old bicycles and, sometimes, in a friend's old car. With the lack of parental supervision, the boys manage to get into some trouble, like being stuck well out of town when the car won't start, and worse, having a BB gun fight that nearly takes out an eye. No one dies, and no one ends up in the hospital. Teenage foolishness. Life is not carefree, however. Racism is there, just under the surface. The boys trash talk seemingly all the time. When the parents do come out, Benji reveals his father's alcoholism. Yet Benji copes, and finds his music, his friends, his favorite television, his inner life. Benji constantly remakes himself in an effort to become the coolest in town, or at least, cooler than he was the year before.

Characters

Analysis

According to Touré's New York Times review of the book, Sag Harbor speaks to a new generation of wealthy young black people. [1] In the wake of the election of President Barack Obama and the success of other African Americans in the national spotlight, this story of a wealthy black teenager depicts a situation – "black boys with beach houses" – that was however paradoxical when it took place, in 1985. [1] Himself the son of wealthy parents, the novel is a fictional account of Whitehead's life at that time. The 2009 publication of Sag Harbor coincides with what Touré terms the post-black period, when blacks are less noticed for their color and more for their public achievements. [1]

Colson Whitehead wanted to take up a different path in writing Sag Harbor, a novel named after the town in which he used to vacation with his family. In a January 2009 Wall Street Journal article, Whitehead said, "Having written a string of books that were heavy on the ideas and social critique, I wanted to try something more modest and personal." [2] His previous books, The Intuitionist and John Henry Days , are quite different from Sag Harbor in style and genre. Sag Harbor is a very personal depiction of Whitehead's own life as a teenager, giving the novel a much more vibrant context, as Whitehead depicts, in fiction, his own experiences including young love, young hate, and even pop-culture events of 1985 such as New Coke. [1]

Release details

Honors

TV series

In August 2021, it was reported that a television series adaptation of the novel was in development at HBO Max. The project was set to be produced by Boat Rocker Media with Laurence Fishburne as executive producer. [3] There has been no new information since the announcement and HBO Max rebranded as Max in May 2023.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Betty Cooper</span> Archie Comics character

Elizabeth "Betty" Cooper is one of the main characters appearing in American comic books published by Archie Comics. She is the lead guitarist, percussionist and one of the three singers of The Archies. The character was created by Bob Montana and John L. Goldwater, and first appeared in Pep Comics #22, on the first page of the first Archie story, serving as a love interest to Archie Andrews.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sag Harbor, New York</span> Village in New York, United States

Sag Harbor is an incorporated village in Suffolk County, New York, United States, in the towns of Southampton and East Hampton on eastern Long Island. The village developed as a working port on Gardiners Bay. The population was 2,772 at the 2020 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Hamptons</span> Seaside group of towns, villages and hamlets

The Hamptons, part of the East End of Long Island, consist of the towns of Southampton and East Hampton, which together compose the South Fork of Long Island, in Suffolk County, New York. The Hamptons are a popular seaside resort and one of the historical summer colonies of the northeastern United States.

<i>Boyz n the Hood</i> 1991 film directed by John Singleton

Boyz n the Hood is a 1991 American coming-of-age hood crime drama film written and directed by John Singleton in his feature directorial debut. It stars Cuba Gooding Jr., Ice Cube, Morris Chestnut, and Larry Fishburne, with supporting roles done by Nia Long, Tyra Ferrell, Regina King, and Angela Bassett. Boyz n the Hood follows Tre Styles, who is sent to live with his father Furious Styles (Fishburne) in South Central Los Angeles, surrounded by the neighborhood's booming gang culture, where he reunites with his childhood friends. The film's title is a reference to the 1987 Eazy-E rap song of the same name, written by Ice Cube.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Southampton (village), New York</span> Place in New York, United States

Southampton is an incorporated village in the Town of Southampton in Suffolk County, on the South Fork of Long Island, in New York, United States. The population was 4,550 at the 2020 census, an increase of 46.3% from the 2010 census a decade earlier.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">East Hampton, New York</span> Town in New York, United States

The Town of East Hampton is located in southeastern Suffolk County, New York, at the eastern end of the South Shore of Long Island. It is the easternmost town in the state of New York. At the time of the 2020 United States census, it had a total population of 28,385.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colson Whitehead</span> American novelist (born 1969)

Arch Colson Chipp Whitehead is an American novelist. He is the author of nine novels, including his 1999 debut The Intuitionist; The Underground Railroad (2016), for which he won the 2016 National Book Award for Fiction and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction; and The Nickel Boys, for which he won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction again in 2020, making him one of only four writers ever to win the prize twice. He has also published two books of nonfiction. In 2002, he received a MacArthur Fellowship.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sagging (fashion)</span> Manner of wearing pants

Sagging is a manner of wearing trousers that sag so that the top of the trousers or jeans is significantly below the waist, sometimes revealing much of the wearer's underpants.

<i>Always Outnumbered</i> American TV series or program

Always Outnumbered is a television film based on the novel Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned by author Walter Mosley. It first aired on pay television channel HBO in 1998.

The following is a list of members of the families of Archie's Gang appearing in Archie Comics. Primarily featured are the parents of Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge and Jughead Jones.

<i>The Moon and More</i> 2013 book by Sarah Dessen

The Moon and More is Sarah Dessen's eleventh book, published in June 2013, and is a young adult novel. The protagonist, Emaline is a Colby native, a small beachside town, and so summer at the beach for her means hard work and a new population of beach goers. During this, her last summer before college, Emaline meets Theo while working for her family's rental business. He's a city boy who's come to Colby as the assistant to a high-strung documentary filmmaker who's in town to profile a reclusive local artist. Emaline knows he's not her type, but she can not help feeling drawn to him. And as their relationship develops, Emaline finds herself questioning her own goals, values, and choices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amaza Lee Meredith</span> American architect

Amaza Lee Meredith was an American architect, educator and artist. Meredith was unable to enter the profession as an architect because of "both her race and her sex" as an African-American woman, and worked primarily as an art teacher at Virginia State University, where she founded the art department. Sex and race wasn’t the only factor that was challenging at the time. Amaza Lee Meredith lived authentically as an African-American Queer artist despite at the time heterosexual norms. She is best known for her residence, Azurest South, where she and her partner, Dr. Edna Meade Colson, resided together. Moreover, she co-founded the Azurest Syndicate Inc., a vacation destination for black middle class Americans on Sag Harbor, New York. As an educated black woman, Meredith is a rare example of a financially and socially independent black woman living in the time of Jim Crow Segregation Laws.

<i>The Underground Railroad</i> (novel) 2016 novel by Colson Whitehead

The Underground Railroad is a historical fiction novel by American author Colson Whitehead, published by Doubleday in 2016. The alternate history novel tells the story of Cora, a slave in the Antebellum South during the 19th century, who makes a bid for freedom from her Georgia plantation by following the Underground Railroad, which the novel depicts as a rail transport system with safe houses and secret routes. The book was a critical and commercial success, hitting the bestseller lists and winning several literary awards, including the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Award for Fiction, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the 2017 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence. A TV miniseries adaptation, written and directed by Barry Jenkins, was released in May 2021.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Barry Jenkins</span> American filmmaker

Barry Jenkins is an American filmmaker. After making his filmmaking debut with the short film My Josephine (2003), he directed his first feature film Medicine for Melancholy (2008) for which he received an Independent Spirit Award nomination for Best First Feature. He is also a member of The Chopstars collective as a creative collaborator.

<i>The Nickel Boys</i> 2019 novel by Colson Whitehead

The Nickel Boys is a 2019 novel by American novelist Colson Whitehead. It is based on the historic Dozier School, a reform school in Florida that operated for 111 years and was revealed as highly abusive. A university investigation found numerous unmarked graves for unrecorded deaths and a history into the late 20th century of emotional and physical abuse of students.

<i>Beartown</i> (novel) 2016 novel by Fredrik Backman

Beartown is a novel by Swedish writer Fredrik Backman. The novel, noted as "hockey literature", centers on a declining youth hockey team in a small town. The story follows the events leading up to a violent incident involving two teenagers and the consequences that they face, the hockey players, their families, friends, and the community which has a long-standing reputation as a hockey town. It is the first book in the Beartown series, followed by Us Against You and The Winners.

The Central Park Five is a two-act American opera composed by Anthony Davis with libretto by Richard Wesley. It premiered on June 15, 2019, at the Long Beach Opera Company in California. The premiere was directed by Andreas Mitisek and conducted by Leslie Dunner. Davis was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Music for the opera on May 4, 2020. An earlier, shorter version, titled Five, was premiered in Newark, New Jersey, in 2016 by the Trilogy Company. A staged concert production has been announced by New York City Opera; the date has not been set.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sag Harbor Hills, Azurest, and Ninevah Beach Subdivisions Historic District</span> Historic district in New York, United States

Sag Harbor Hills, Azurest, and Ninevah Beach Subdivisions Historic District (SANS) is an African American beachfront community in Sag Harbor, New York. Founded following World War II, the SANS community served primarily as a summer retreat for middle-class African American families during the post-WWII and Jim Crow era. African American families were not allowed at beachfront resorts, pools or beaches, and SANS began as a place of refuge from racial strife. The historic district is bordered by Hempstead Street, Richards Drive, Hampton Street, Lincoln Street, Harding Terrace, Terry Drive and the eastern end of Haven's Beach in Sag Harbor. It was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on July 10, 2019.

References