>> Guy Lamolinara: Hello.
I'm Guy Lamolinara of the
Library of Congress and head
of its Center for the Book.
The Center is a network of 53
Library of Congress affiliates
in the 50 states, the District
of Columbia, Puerto Rico
and the US Virgin Islands.
Together with these affiliates,
the Center at the Library
of Congress carries out its
mission of promoting books,
reading libraries and
literacy nationwide.
Today, we are kicking off the
first of the Library's programs,
each in our affiliate Centers
For the Book with a focus
on New York's Empire
State Center for the Book.
The Center, which has been a
Library affiliate since 2002,
is headquartered at the New
York Library Association.
Among the many programs
of the Center is its New York
State Writers Hall of Fame,
which celebrates
some of the states
and the country's most
important writers.
This includes such esteemed
writers as Jacqueline Woodson,
who was a Library of
Congress National Ambassador
for Young People's
Literature in 2018 and '19.
Today we will hear from
the renowned writer
and New York native and
resident Colson Whitehead,
two-time winner of the Pulitzer
Prize and 2020 recipient
of the Library of Congress
Prize For American Fiction.
Colson was also a 2018 inductee
into the New York State
Writers Hall of Fame,
which includes writers
not just from the present
but also from the past.
The library's Fiction
Prize is meant
to honor an American
literary writer whose body
of work is distinguished not
only for its mastery of the art
but also for its originality
of thought and imagination.
The award seeks to commend
strong, unique enduring voices
that throughout long,
consistently established careers
have told us something important
about the American experience.
Colson Whitehead is the
12th recipient of the award,
and he certainly meets
that description.
His last two novels,
The Nickel Boys
and The Underground Railroad,
are consecutive winners
of the Pulitzer Prize,
historical novels
that showcase Paulson's unique
ability to draw from history
to speak to the issues of today.
His forthcoming novel
is The Harlem Shuffle.
It has been described as a
gloriously entertaining novel
of heist, shakedowns,
and rip-offs set
in Harlem of the 1960s.
Colson will be in
conversation today
with his fellow New Yorker Rocco
Staino, who is the Director
of the Empire State
Center for the Book.
Rocco has been a longtime
innovative leader of the Center,
tirelessly promoting the rich --
literary riches of
New York State.
I want to thank Rocco for all
you have done in your work
for the Empire State Center,
and I also of course
want to thank Colson.
Thank you for sharing your
time with us and for being
such an extraordinary ambassador
for the Library of Congress
as our Prize for American
fiction recipient.
Please welcome Colson
Whitehead and Rocco Staino.
>> Rocco Staino: Thank you, Guy.
It's a pleasure to be here
with Colson Whitehead,
a member of the New York
State Writers Hall of Fame
and among other things.
I know that's the award you
tell everybody right off.
Yes. You know, but
well-deserved.
And the title of today's
conversation is Colson
Whitehead's New York and how
New York affects what you write
and how you write it.
You know, and your
most recent book,
The Nickel Boys, is
based in Florida.
But New York makes an
appearance in the book,
New York of the 1960s.
Why New York and
not another city?
>> Colson Whitehead: You
know, I always feel better
when I can get New
York into a book.
With The Underground Railroad,
for example, it's about a slave
in the South running North.
And there's a slave
catcher named Ridgeway
who is pursuing her, and I
was having trouble finding her
character, the slave
catcher's character.
And then I read Eric
Foner's book
about the Underground Railroad
which deals about the sort
of war between abolitionists
and slave catchers
in New York in the 19th century.
And something clicked.
You know, the slave catcher
Ridgeway comes to New York
like so many people
and becomes himself.
He discovers himself once
he comes to the big city.
And once I made that connection,
I found out who he was.
And, you know, it was a great
relief to get three pages
of New York into this
book about the South.
And it was sort of the same
thing with The Nickel Boys.
One of the characters, he's in
this reform school in Florida.
And as he gets older, he comes
to the North to find himself
and ends up in New York City.
And, you know, I didn't want
to spend the whole book dealing
with this reform school
and the terrible abuses.
It's really about the two main
characters, these two boys
and what happens to
them after the school,
how they find themselves
or not find themselves.
And so in the case of
Elwood, the grownup Elwood,
he comes to New York,
Manhattan and the West Village.
It's on the West Side in
the '80s and finds himself.
And, weirdly, you know,
when the book came out,
I started meeting survivors
of the real life
model for the school.
And the first person
I talked to,
it turned out he lived a
few blocks away from me
on the Upper West
Side, so we met.
And so he was a Dozier in the
'60s, and then moved to 84th
and Broadway when he
moved to New York.
And in the book,
The Nickel Boys,
the main character comes
to Broadway and 83rd.
So it's weird that it
worked out that way.
But you know, sort of
following that very old story
of black Southerners
coming to New York.
>> Rocco Staino: Yes.
Now, so in the book, it's
the New York of the 1960s.
And myself being
of a certain age,
I actually as a kid
remember the garbage strike
and which you discuss in that.
But what type of research did
you do to create that New York?
>> Colson Whitehead: Yeah.
I mean, again, it's fair.
You know, my book that's coming
out in the fall is about Harlem
in the -- Harlem in the '60s.
And I did a lot of location
scouting, trying to figure
out where my main
character works and lives
and where his office is and
where various things happen.
In the case -- in the
case of Nickel Boys,
I didn't do a lot of
location scouting.
But I was trying to find,
you know, different moments
in New York history after
'65 that would suit the book.
And so we meet Elwood
as a grown up.
He's -- it's the week of the
garbage strike in the mid '70s.
And he's watching this movie,
The Defiant Ones, on television.
And so in that case where, you
know, two prisoners are trying
to escape a chain gang.
And in that case, I went to
the New York Times archive
and wanted to see what was
playing on the movie of the week
on July 3 of this
year and turned
out to be the Defiant Ones.
And it's sort of the book.
And so later in the '80s
there's a brief '80s chapter
where he watches the marathon.
And the marathon is this quite
communal event in New York City.
I've lived in Manhattan,
lived in Brooklyn.
And always in the first
week in November when the --
when the runners are coming
up Fifth Avenue in Brooklyn
or Lafayette in Brooklyn
or 59th Street, you know,
the whole city comes together
in this communal
adoration of the runners.
And so that's the moment where
the main character enters
into this New York hood.
He sort of sees them as part of
this great community of white,
black, rich, poor,
all coming together
to celebrate the marathon.
And later on when he's
married, you know,
there's a different
sort of New York.
But, you know, I was trying
to find different stops along
his adult life in the '70s,
'80s, '90s that would
serve the story.
And sometimes, in this case, it
meant, you know, maybe looking
at the history of the marathon,
who won this year, that year.
It's not as fun as sort
of location scouting,
as I've been doing lately.
>> Rocco Staino: Yeah.
You mentioned your next book is
set in New York, Harlem Shuffle.
Can you tell us about it?
>> Colson Whitehead: Yeah.
I mean, you know, in general,
I write a more serious book
and a book that has more jokes.
And with Underground Railroad
and Nickel Boys, you know,
there's two sort of serious
books, you know, back to back.
So, you know, a crime novel,
you know, paradoxically,
is a little bit lighter.
There's more room for jokes.
And so it follows
a criminal offense.
You know, if you watch
heist movies, they always,
like, steal the diamonds.
And then they go to a fence,
and the fence is like,
I'll give you 10
cents on the dollar.
And so it's like a huge outrage.
Do all the work and then
this fence, you know,
takes all their profits.
And so I was thinking,
I love heist movies,
but I always hate the
guy they take it to.
So why not write
a book about him?
And so it's about a small time
fence in Harlem in the '60s
and follows his route to a
more grander criminality.
You know, he finds the crook
within over the course
of a couple years.
>> Rocco Staino: And when
is that book being released?
It's soon?
>> Colson Whitehead: Yeah.
In September 2021.
And, you know, as I
was saying, you know,
I was doing location scouting
and also trying to figure
out what businesses were on
125th Street in the '60s,
trying to find locations.
And the Hotel Theresa was a
big hotel in the '50s and '40s.
It was called the
Waldorf of Harlem.
And, you know, the big
fighters would stay there.
JFK did a campaign stop there.
Castro came in the '60s.
And so I did all this research
about the Hotel Theresa
and the Chock full
o'Nuts that was there.
And the main character
has some meetings,
and the Chock full o'Nuts --
and I, you know, saw my mother
and I was like, oh, yeah.
You know, I'm writing about
the '60s and Hotel Theresa.
And she's like, Oh, yeah.
I hung out with that, you know,
Chock full o'Nuts all the time.
You know, she and my dad
were young, a young couple
in New York at that time.
And a month later, I was
writing about Blumstein,
like a department
store on 125th Street.
I was telling my mother
Oh, yeah, Blumstein's.
And she's like, Oh, yeah.
Your dad worked there
for like two summers.
It was a summer job,
like a stock boy.
So I was doing all this
research on the internet,
and I should have been
talking my mother.
>> Rocco Staino: Right.
I love it.
I love it.
Did she talk about the
cream cheese sandwiches
at Chock full o'Nuts.
>> Colson Whitehead: I think
[inaudible] personally, yeah.
>> Rocco Staino: Yes.
Yeah. So you're a
New Yorker, right?
Born and bred, as they
say, in New York City.
And so can you take us on a tour
of Colson Whitehead's New York,
you know, places that stand
out from your childhood
to right now?
>> Colson Whitehead:
Well, I mean, you know,
we lived all over town.
I had like three siblings.
And, you know, one
goes to college.
We moved to a different
neighborhood that was smaller;
or my parents' business
is doing better,
move to a bigger apartment.
And so by the time I got to
college, I lived in North 39th
and Riverside, 97th and 5th,
57th Street and for high school
and college, 101st and West End.
And, you know, high
school is a big sort
of identity formations,
you know, period.
And so that's really
my favorite New York,
the Upper West Side in the '80s.
I was in Brooklyn for 18 years
when I worked in
the Village Voice.
All the sort of young
writers are moving
to Brooklyn, Fort Greene.
There was that romance of a
Spike Lee's black Brooklyn.
And so we were all
moving out there.
And it was great being there
before it got really gentrified.
It was great raising kids there
in the early part
of this century.
But now I'm back on, you know,
on the Upper West Side again.
My wife's parents live nearby.
And, you know, it's good
to be the sort of older
and it's good to be close by.
And I love how much is
the same, and I marvel
about how much is different.
You know, I love the
light off of Broadway
in the mid afternoon bouncing
off the buildings in the '70s.
I loved Amsterdam in the '90s.
You know, I used
to walk down there
to school, you know, for years.
And there's still that --
you know, there's still
some bodega culture.
There's new condos.
It's, you know, a
mix of, you know,
my '80s New York
and what it is now.
And it's nice to sort of
be able to sort of toggle
between these two
different periods.
So, yeah. So I'm
back in Manhattan.
You know, I used to joke that
I moved to Brooklyn to get away
from all the people
who annoy me.
Then I woke up one day and all
of them had moved to Brooklyn,
so it's easy to just
come back to Manhattan.
It was safe again.
>> Rocco Staino: Terrific.
You know, I'm actually speaking
to you from 57th Street.
So, yeah, so part
of the neighborhood.
Yes. The -- but it's not
only New York City, right?
You spent time on Long Island.
>> Colson Whitehead: Yeah.
I mean, you know, my
parents had a place
in Sag Harbor, Long Island.
My grandfather had
built it in the '40s.
So my first summer I
spent there, I spend most
of my summers there
growing up in Sag Harbor.
There's a black neighborhood
within this, you know,
sort of whiter part
of the Hamptons.
And it goes back -- you
know, goes back 150 years.
There were Native American
and black sailors were part
of like the whaling community,
and they lived, you know,
a mile outside of Main Street.
And in the early part
of the 20th century,
there were black teachers
and bankers and preachers
and that sort of thing.
We started going out there.
And they would tell
their friends,
and their friends would
buy a plot of land
and eventually became this
black community in Sag Harbor
in the '40s and '50s and
then, you know, still there.
>> Rocco Staino: Yes.
And speaking of Sag Harbor,
that sounds familiar.
That's a title of
one of your books.
>> Colson Whitehead: Yes, Yes.
You know, I mean, most
of my books have some
sort of New York link.
And in the case of Sag
Harbor, I felt it was time
to be a little more personal.
I was sort of -- I'd
been sort of removed
in my first few novels, and
I thought it'd be a good --
good for my personal
growth and artistic growth
to do something a little
more autobiographical
or add a little more
skin in the game.
And so the book is about
growing up in the '80s.
The main character's a New
Yorker who goes to Sag Harbor
and is in high school and
has, like, this community
of black friends he's going
up with and covers one summer.
It's not a summer where, like,
you know, Stand By Me where,
like, they find a dead body
in the woods and, like,
all this crazy stuff happens.
It's really just that kind
of slow identity formation
that happens when
you're in high school.
Who am I, you know,
where do I fit
in with my family, my community?
Where do I stand
apart from them?
So, as opposed to, say, in my
last couple of books which,
you know, do have a
lot of high stakes --
you know, the big action-packed
scene in Sag Harbor is
when he gets his braces
off around Chapter 7.
So it's really just about
sort of a character piece,
a character sketch about a time.
And it really is a time capsule
because the Sag Harbor that's
described doesn't really,
you know, exist anymore.
You know, the Hamptons
have sort of swallowed up.
In the '80s it was still
kind of quaint and corny.
And as a former whaling
town, you know,
they make bumper stickers that
said, you know, I had a whale
of a great time in Sag Harbor.
And that kind of, you know,
kitschy stuff is gone.
And it's, you know, expensive
sandwiches and stuff like that.
And so, you know -- you
know, I feel really great
when people say, I like
the book, I love the book,
and it also captures, you
know, Long Island at that time,
a time period that's gone.
>> Rocco Staino: Right.
I guess in the back
in the acknowledgments you
acknowledge an ice cream store
out there.
>> Colson Whitehead:
I worked a few summers
at Big Olaf, and
it's still there.
You know, my old
boss still runs it.
He had like a mini
ice cream empire
at the end of Long Island.
So I remember I wrote
a small piece about it
for the New York Times
about sort of like a teaser
of the book about why I
can't eat ice cream anymore
because I'd eat ice cream
all day and get sick
and the next day do it again.
And so now I have ice
cream once a year.
But they were fact-checking
the piece,
and they called up my boss.
And then they called
me, and it's like,
he denies that he
paid you minimum wage.
And I was like, well, you
know, I'm going to let it go.
You can change that line.
It is true, and those 5 cent
raises were coveted and fought
over between me and my friends.
And, you know, he got that
five cent raise and not
that 10 cent raise, you know,
you were -- had to, you know,
kiss some butt the next
week to move up the ladder.
So -- but, yes.
If you're in Long Island
now, go to Big Olaf
and you can see the joint.
>> Rocco Staino: Right.
Exactly. A shout out.
And, you know, it may
have been minimum wage,
but you also got all the
ice cream you could eat.
>> Colson Whitehead: Yes.
And, again, now, actually,
writing the book helped me
through some personal problems.
And, now, I couldn't
eat ice cream
for many years because
of memories.
But now I have ice cream
a couple times a year.
So, you know, novels
as catharsis healing,
you know, it's all true.
>> Rocco Staino: Right.
You know, one of the members
of the Hall of Fame here
in New York is E.B. White.
And he wrote a book
called, Here is New York.
And so you wrote a book
similar to this in the sense
that The Colossus
of New York is 13?
So I think is it 13?
>> Colson Whitehead: 13 If
I remember correctly, yeah.
Yeah. I mean, you know,
I've written two novels.
And then as a side project
I was writing these sort
of impressionistic
pieces about the city,
about Central Park,
about rush hour.
And they weren't, you
know, a book really.
They were sort of, for me,
I really like the voice.
You know, it's the voice
sort of moves in and out
of different perspectives.
It's I, you, he, she.
It zooms up for a very
impersonal view of the city
and then zooms in on
a very close detail.
And then 9/11 happened;
and I had to, you know,
put down the novel I was
working on to sort of figure
out how I could live
in my home city,
which had suffered
this great wound.
And so I went on Colossus
full time and wrote 13 pieces.
And it's about New York City.
It's also about, like, any
place you know and love.
It could be, you
know, Sao Paulo.
It could be Paris.
It's any place where, you
know, you do mark the seasons
of your life by that
store disappearing,
that theater opening
and closing,
what did you see
there, now it's a condo.
This is where you kissed so
and so, and it's still there.
So a sort of mental
map of the self
that we superimpose
upon the city.
And it was -- you know,
I felt better writing it.
Like it's not a Valentine
to New York.
It's New York, warts and all.
And, again, it was -- looking
back, I can't believe, like,
I wrote 13 short
pieces about New York
and then they were
published [laughing].
So -- but I guess,
like, but it happened.
And it was a weird impulse.
I think back then I was, you
know, a little more freer
in terms of what I wanted to do.
And so, you know, in
terms of my personality,
it looks like a weird choice.
And it's a lovely book.
But looking back,
I was pretty young
and thought I could do
anything, apparently.
>> Rocco Staino: Well, I have to
say I just picked it up and I --
growing up in my teenage years,
I worked in Coney Island.
And I enjoyed that piece because
you kind of captured the feel
of Coney Island, as you said,
the good, the bad and the ugly.
>> Colson Whitehead: Yeah.
It's Coney Island
but also many --
there's so many places
that have that kind
of beach or ocean promenade.
And maybe it's Virginia
or Florida or California.
But the boardwalk, you
know, looms so large
in so many different places.
So even if you've never
been to Coney Island,
hopefully you can see
your own boardwalk.
>> Rocco Staino: Many members
of the Hall of Fame, you know,
the year you were inducted,
I believe Jackie Woodson,
who was the National Ambassador
for Young People's Literature,
was also inducted
and Russel Shorto.
Those were the living
individuals.
And -- but, as Guy
mentioned, you know,
it's both current writers
like yourself but people
that have made a lasting impact.
And I was just wondering what
New York writers had an impact
on you?
>> Colson Whitehead:
Well, you know,
I guess when you were talking
about that I was thinking
of how, when I lived in Fort
Greene, I lived two blocks
down from where Richard Wright
was writing in the '30s or '40s.
So, you know, there's so
many -- there's so many --
I feel like I've been
blessed to live in a lot
of different places where
people I've idolized have walked
or slept.
You know, I think a lot
of us have probably walked
from Casses [phonetic] over
the last couple of decades
and I think gotten a hotdog or
inish [phonetic] or something.
But, yeah.
You know, walking
around uptown past
where George Carlin,
you know, grew up.
And he was a Harlemite.
And I think you should
induct him.
You know, he's a few books.
You know, watching his specials
on HBO with my family when I was
like 10 or 11, his
special is Richard Pryor.
You know, they definitely
informed my point of view.
They would veer from the comedic
to the tragic from,
you know, bit to bit.
And I think I see a lot of
New Yorkness in George Carlin.
And, I mean, he talks
about growing up,
going to Catholic school
and playing hooky in Harlem,
you know, I feel like those
streets are still here
with us now.
>> Rocco Staino: You
know, usually they'll say,
so what are you reading?
But I'm not going to
ask you that question.
I'm going to ask you what's
on your playlist
when you're writing?
>> Colson Whitehead: Yeah.
Well, I mean, I, you know,
I play music when I work.
You know, I always have
since I was in high school.
You know, growing
up in the city,
there's all sorts of noises.
There's like a car going by,
a fire engine, a car alarm,
neighbor's being
choked to death upstairs
and there's screams
echoing through the night.
So it's a noisy city, and I've
always just played loud music
to drown out what's
happening outside.
And so I have a 3000
song playlist,
and it goes from stuff I
was playing 40 years ago,
David Bowie and Prince
to Daft Punk, Edith Piaf,
Ornette Coleman, Run-DMC.
It's just a mix of, you know,
3000 songs I like and love.
And it keeps me company.
And I'll sing along, have
a little dance party.
It helps the day go by.
So, yeah, I recommend it.
A lot of people don't like
to hear music when they work.
>> Rocco Staino: Thanks for
joining us today, Colson,
and sharing your
New York with us.
>> Colson Whitehead: Yeah.
Thanks for having me.
And thanks all you New
Yorkers for tuning in.
It's been a hard year,
but I think we're approaching
the end of something.
I think that things
are looking up.
So I hope to see you
on the other side.
Take care.
>> Rocco Staino: I'd like to
thank the Library of Congress
for giving the Empire
State Center
for the Book the opportunity
to chat with Colson Whitehead,
one of our Hall of Fame members.
And I hope you all enjoyed it.
>> Guy Lamolinara:
Rocco, thank you so much
for that great interview.
And, Colson, thank you for
that marvelous conversation.
We will continue to look forward
to hearing your unique voice
and reading your amazing work.
And I also want to
thank our audience.
And you can learn more about
the Library of Congress Prize
for American Fiction at lsc.gov
where you can also explore
our extraordinary collections
featuring millions of items,
many of them unique and rare.
I hope you will also join us for
our companion program Pop Life:
Literature and Culture,
featuring Colson Whitehead
in conversation with
the new director
of the Smithsonian's
National Museum
of African-American History
and Culture, Kevin Young.
The conversation led by author
Isaac Fitzgerald will be
broadcast just a
few days from now,
on Thursday, April 1 at 7pm.
You can find more about this
and other literary programs
at the Library of Congress
by going to llc.gov/engage.