big homie I ain’t seen in some Sundays.
Some writers impress critics and
win accolades; others tally robust sales.
Whitehead is the rare writer who’s accom-
plished both. “I was definitely broke,” he
admits. “Most of my life I’ve been living
check to check.” But please believe he ain’t
living check to check no more. He tours
me around the house, a stunner. Upstairs,
he shows me a master bedroom as big as
my old Harlem apartment, and out back
there’s an in-ground swimming pool. His
home is what I was hoping it would be be-
cause, as far as literary careers go, he’s a
paragon, and I for one welcome proof that
what he’s achieved can earn such a life.
We sit down to chat in his office, and
he offers to show me an outline from The
Underground Railroad. He opens the file,
and points to the beginning. There are
no roman numerals or numbers or let-
ters, only sentences, many of which de-
scribe things I remember from the book.
“I know the beginning and the end,” he
says. “Then it gets fuzzy, and things drop
in and out.” He’s already working on his
next project, one he started before writ-
ing The Nickel Boys: a crime novel set in
Harlem in the 1960s.
As we talk, I notice markings on one
of the moldings. He later tells me they’re
dated height measurements of the chil-
dren of the home’s previous owners. It
strikes me that Whitehead didn’t erase
them but rather has added an entry for
his son. That small decision might explain
some of his writing practice, the act of
taking old forms or subjects and filtering
them through his imagination, of hold-
ing the confidence that one needn’t try to
erase what’s come before to make some-
thing new.
Whitehead steps away, and while he’s
gone I lift medals to feel their weight, pull
a framed award certificate off the shelf
and read its small print, flip through the
stack of framed posters. I wonder what
it must feel like for him to work in this
space, to look over at the trappings of his
accomplishments, to glance out the win-
dow at the forest that is his yard. It strikes
me that it might’ve been tough for Langs-
ton Hughes and Whitehead’s other fore-
bearers to fathom his achievements, that
he just might be beyond their dreams. Jackson is the author of The Residue
Years and Survival Mathcapacity to outlast the terrors of injustice.
Whitehead has proved his mastery
over his craft. Yet it’s taken time for him
to accept his own place in the literary
world. About a decade ago, he ran into
Toni Morrison—who he says is the Great
American Writer—on the Princeton cam-
pus. She invited him for coffee. “I was like,
‘I don’t deserve to have coffee with Toni
Morrison. That’s ridiculous,’” he says. He
never went through with it. “I was too em-
barrassed that she invited me. It’s like get-
ting someone else’s mail.”
Would he have accepted the invitation
today? “I’m less self-conscious now,” he
says. “I have fewer hang-ups.”A couple dAys after meeting him in Har-
lem, I head to Whitehead’s new second
home in East Hampton, which I will learn
is 4,000 sq. ft. and sits on two acres of
land. Pulling up, I can see him through the
floor-to-ceiling windows that look into
the kitchen. There he is standing over the
stove. He waves and hustles to the orange
front door. He’s dressed in a T-shirt, blue
jeans and red Chuck Taylors—all the right
amount of worn in. Whitehead is making^
Whitehead doesn’t dawdle. “I only
have so much time,” he says. “I should
probably start another book before
I’m struck by lightning or something.”jerk smoked pork (his smoker is beloved)
and potatoes and offers to share the reci-
pes. Lunch won’t be ready for a while, but
he’s got snacks.
Hours later, he serves me a plate. He
warns of spiciness and pours me a glass of
water. While he busies himself elsewhere
in the house, I eat the meal alone in his
kitchen, feeling thankful for his gracious-
ness and culinary skill. If you’re wonder-
ing, the food is scrumptious.
I’d seen Whitehead around New
York a few times at literary events, and
because we hadn’t conversed, hadn’t
exchanged a handshake or dap or the
universal black man’s acknowledgment
known as “the nod,” I’d judged him a
certain type. But our conversations have
been easy, and his current hospitality
feels real, and well, call me a softy, but
WAYNE LAWRENCE FOR TIME this fast, it’s almost as if he’s a literary-
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