Colson Whitehead

Workin’, etc.

Thu, 14 Feb 2013 14:22:40 -0500

Writing away.

I write a short story like once every 10 years. I figured I’d upload The Comedian, which was published in Electric Literature #2, in 2009....

Working

Sat, 1 Sep 2012 09:57:06 -0400

Zone One is available in paperback at your favorite paperback purveyor, and I am back to work.

I wrote A Psychotronic Childhood for the New Yorker, and covered the Olympics for Grantland in a piece called Hard Times in the Uncanny Valley. Also offered not very helpful tips on how to write in a New York Times piece called How to Write.

Treat yourself to something nice. Check the Events page for places I’ll be. See you later!

Guess what?

Mon, 7 Nov 2011 16:13:27 -0500

Zone One came out!

“Summer Update”

Sun, 14 Aug 2011 16:09:44 -0400

Spent most of the summer in training for and writing about the World Series of Poker. Click and see!

In Zone One news, October 18th is the official pub date. Here is a film festival to get you up to speed.

Harper’s ran an excerpt. And a nice interview/update on where I am these days.

The first section of the book is here on Scribd.com

And there have been some kind & early & starred reviews:

Publishers Weekly says: “Whitehead dumpster dives genre tropes, using what he wants and leaving the rest to rot, turning what could have been another zombie-pocalypse gore-fest into the kind of smart, funny, pop culture–filled tale that would make George Romero proud.”

Kirkus is also nice, saying: “[H]e sinks his teeth into a popular format and emerges with a literary feast, producing his most compulsively readable work to date. Though there’s enough chomp-and-spurt gorefest to satiate fans of the format, Whitehead transforms the zombie novel into an allegory of contemporary Manhattan (and, by extension, America)...”

And Booklist says that “This diabolically smart, covertly sensitive, ruminative, and witty zombie nightmare prods us to think about how we dehumanize others, how society tramples and consumes individuals, how flimsy our notions of law and order are, and how easily deluded and profoundly vulnerable humankind is. A deft, wily, and unnerving blend of pulse-elevating action and sniper-precise satire.”

Am I coming to your city? The book tour is here. And here are some places where you can pre-order a copy:
IndieBound
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
iBooks
Random House
eBook

It Lives

Wed, 25 May 2011 10:19:15 -0400

Advance copies are out in the wild. A few things:

If you are hung up on labels, yes, the book is “another genre outing” for me. Zone One is a zombie novel in the way The Intuitionist is a detective novel.

My childhood tutelage in the apocalypse came from movies, as opposed to books. A film festival covering the master texts for Zone One would screen the following (1956-1985):

The first Romero Trilogy (Sane Black Man Vs. The Crazy White People)
John Carpenter’s Urban Blight (Assault on Precinct 13, Escape From New York)
Heston as Last White Guy on Earth (Planet of the Apes, Omega Man, Soylent Green)
S.A.V.’s - Sick Armored Vehicles (Damnation Alley, The Road Warrior)
My Lover, My Monster (Invasion of the Body Snatchers 1956, 1978)
Mr. Dan O’Bannon (Alien, Return of the Living Dead)
‘70s NY as Crucible of the Soul (Dog Day Afternoon, Taxi Driver, The Warriors, et al.)

Are they trendy fast or classic slow? I like my zombies like I like my women: slow and implacable.

Harper’s is running an excerpt in their July/August issue.

You can pre-order a copy at your favorite store.

I wrote a piece for Publisher’s Weekly about internet distraction/wretchedness.

I did this unlikely thing for Vogue. Weird!

Catch you in a few months. As always, you can find me at @colsonwhitehead.