Sag Harbor (novel)

Sag Harbor is a 2009 novel by author Colson Whitehead.

Sag Harbor takes place in Sag Harbor, a small village in the exclusive Hamptons on the east end of New York's Long Island. The village of Sag Harbor is on the bay side (northern part) of the South Fork of the tip of Long Island, and an old whaling port where several African-American families have bought property over many years. As Whitehead says, one comes "out" to Long Island from New York City. Then the summer vacation can begin. (The author also mentions the ocean beach, in East Hampton, where he and his friends rarely go. It is a predominantly white area, and blacks and whites do not mingle.) The novel's main character is Benji, an African American teenager spending the summer in this black enclave of the predominantly white and close-knit town along with his brother Reggie. Set in 1985, the novel touches on themes of race, class, substance abuse, and commercial culture.

Plot
School's finally out for the summer and the return to Sag Harbor is in full swing. Teenage brothers Benji and Reggie Cooper escape their majority white preparatory academy in Manhattan. Still clad in Brooks Brothers polos and salmon colored pants, the pair re-meet all of their friends. Like most well-to-do kids at their families' beach houses during the summer, most of the teens in Sag Harbor go almost the entire season with virtually no contact from their parents (aside from occasional visits on the weekends). Benji and Reggie get summer jobs to cover basic expenses, because with no parents there's no spending money. They tool around on old bicycles and, sometimes, in a friend's old car. With the lack of parental supervision, the boys manage to get into some trouble, like being stuck well out of town when the car won't start, and worse, having a BB gun fight that nearly takes out an eye. No one dies, and no one ends up in the hospital. Teenage foolishness. Life is not carefree, however. Racism is there, just under the surface. The boys trash talk seemingly all the time. When the parents do come out, Benji reveals his father's alcoholism. Yet Benji copes, and finds his music, his friends, his favorite television, his inner life. Benji constantly remakes himself in an effort to become the coolest in town, or at least, cooler than he was the year before.

Characters

 * Benji Cooper
 * Reggie Cooper, Benji's brother
 * Various friends in Sag Harbor: Clive, Marcus, Bobby, Randy, NP

Analysis
According to Touré's New York Times review of the book, Sag Harbor speaks to a new generation of wealthy young black people. In the wake of the election of President Barack Obama and the success of other African Americans in the national spotlight, this story of a wealthy black teenager depicts a situation – "black boys with beach houses" – that was however paradoxical when it took place, in 1985. Himself the son of wealthy parents, the novel is a fictional account of Whitehead's life at that time. The 2009 publication of Sag Harbor coincides with what Touré terms the post-black period, when blacks are less noticed for their color and more for their public achievements.

Colson Whitehead wanted to take up a different path in writing Sag Harbor, a novel named after the town in which he used to vacation with his family. In a January 2009 Wall Street Journal article, Whitehead said, "Having written a string of books that were heavy on the ideas and social critique, I wanted to try something more modest and personal." His previous books, The Intuitionist and John Henry Days, are quite different from Sag Harbor in style and genre. Sag Harbor is a very personal depiction of Whitehead's own life as a teenager, giving the novel a much more vibrant context, as Whitehead depicts, in fiction, his own experiences including young love, young hate, and even pop-culture events of 1985 such as New Coke.

Release details

 * 2009, USA, Bantam Doubleday Dell ISBN 0-385-52765-9, pub. date 28 April 2009, hardback first edition

Honors

 * Finalist, PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
 * Finalist, Hurston-Wright Legacy Award

TV series
In August 2021, it was reported that a television series adaptation of the novel was in development at HBO Max. The project will be produced by Boat Rocker Media with Laurence Fishburne as executive producer.