At a time of unprecedented unrest,Colson Whiteheadhas reached some milestones worth celebrating of late.
Andon Wednesday, the author announced that hisnextbook,Harlem Shuffle, would publish in 2021.
It’s an odd moment, perhaps, to be experiencing so much good news.
Credit: Horst Galuschka/picture alliance via Getty Images
Though of course, the book’s themes extend far beyond this moment.
Read on below.The Nickel Boysis now available for purchase in paperback.
ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: How are you these days?
COLSON WHITEHEAD:Hanging in there.
Making sure the kids' internet classes that the wifi doesn’t go down.
have a go at make some nice meals and keep everybody sane.
It hasn’t been all bad news for you these past few months.
How has that second Pulitzer win settled in?
[Laughs] Every once in a while it hits me.
Seemed like a very abstract thing; I haven’t even gotten my head around it yet.
It was a very strange six months.
I just take a stab at be happy.
I also pretend it happened to somebody else; or else, my head would explode.
Did it resonate in a particular way, to receive that honor forNickel Boys?
There’s more me in this book.
[Laughs] I was very glad and proud of the final result.
To have people pick up on that and respond in the way that they did was reallydelightfuland gratifying.
And we spoke before it even came out, right?
So I had no idea what was happening.
Returning for a second tour of this book, now virtual, how have you found that experience?
Especially in what we can call a newly resonant moment.
I’m at home a lot.
I do like doing events!
I like traveling, I like doing lectures and going to bookstores.
Looking out in the audience, I see someone who was there forJohn Henry DaysorSag Harbor.
Which is probably good!
Despite being a private person, I get a lot out of that interaction.
I’m sad that is gone for now.
Have you found the conversation different?
My last few books are so much about race and history that the conversations move into each other.
It hit differently last year than it does this year, even if the messages remain the same.
Right: Obviously the book was written years ago.
Its themes are not new.
Six years later, obviously, those inequities remain.
I saw you’d canceleda Free Library eventin Philadelphia in a sort of public way.
You do what you’re compelled to do.
It was a no-brainer.
PlacingNickel Boysin context with racist policing feels like a no-brainer.
But I’m not itching to appear on an MSNBC panel spouting off.
If I have something to say, I put it in my books.
I’ve gotten a lot of requests to do radio and TV lately.
I really feel no compunction to do that.
Are you able to write right now?
Do you feel stalled out?
I had 80 pages left.
I had a lot going on and was taking care of the kids.
I was very much near the end of it, though.
About six weeks in, got an hour and wrote a page.
The next week, I was able to get two hours.
I finished last month, a book I was working on for almost two years.
And I have no attention span!
I’ve read only one book in the last four months.
I can work and watch TV and follow the news and take care of the kids.
So I’m fortunate that my job is to write and I can write.
[Laughs] After that, I have no attention span for anything more than a tweet, unfortunately.
What was the book you read?
It was a reread.
[Laughs]Love Goes to Buildings on Fireby Will Hermes.
It came out eight-ish years ago.
And it was actually research!
So I can do research.
**
Related content:
