With most of the books we've read for this class, there's been a question of how much of this book is drawn from the author's actual experience. I've felt this a lot with the last three books we've read, especially since we know a little bit more about the background of the authors of The Bell Jar, Black Swan Green, and Sag Harbor.
I personally don't know quite as much about Coulson Whitehead, but he has an interesting habit of bringing the adult narrator's voice deeply into the story with monologues about how he's seen these events shape his life. During these monologues, he explores issues of things like racist microaggressions, abuse, and the realities of growing up black and middle class. Of course it is supposed to be grown up Ben who is talking about all these issues, but like we have discussed in class, I can't help but feel that Coulson Whitehead is using the character of Ben to explore his own opinions about his childhood memories and experiences.
I also wonder how many of the childhood experiences we see Benji going through are drawn directly from Whitehead's own life. He had to have had some sort of connection with Sag Harbor, or at least a huge interest in it, to write this book. We also know he also grew up as a black boy in roughly the same time as this book takes place, and so I wonder if many of these events are just his memories or stories of friends modified to fit a new narrative.
Your post made me really curious so I googled Colson Whitehead to see if I could find anything about his early life. The only thing I found was that he grew up in Manhattan, just like Benji, and he went to Trinity School. I looked at the Wikipedia page for Trinity School and it turns out that it's a selective prep school in New York, which sounds pretty similar to where Benji went. I didn't find anything about other parts of the story that are drawn from Whitehead's experience but it seems that at least part of Benji's story is based off of Whitehead's childhood.
ReplyDeleteI also looked up Whitehead and found the same thing Anika! If you read the acknowledgements Whitehead thanks all the people who are in the story. He thanks the real Jonni Waffle, his brother and Sag Harbor. I think while some of these stories could have been made up the main idea of the summer is the same. I thought this was really nice because it a memoir to his childhood life in Sag Harbor.
ReplyDeleteI think the best writing usually comes from experience. The author can capture feelings and events with an accuracy that a person probably couldn't just come up with.
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