BOOKS

COLSON WHITEHEAD

Novelist and essayist

Colson Whitehead is hardly a new voice in American literature; his three previous books -- “The Intuitionist,” “John Henry Days” and “The Colossus of New York” -- are by turns inventive and deadly serious, works that suggest a merger between myth and history, art and imagination, and open up new pathways into areas we might consider familiar, even mundane. With his third novel, “Apex Hides the Hurt” (due out in March), however, Whitehead broadens his perspective to take on the heart of contemporary America, writing about a small town that hires a consultant to help it come up with a new and catchier name.

It’s a funny concept, and Whitehead can riff with the best of them, but what he’s really getting at is the disappearing line between packaging and product, the point when image turns into substance itself.

In this culture of commodification, and with this novel, Whitehead appears primed to claim the cutting edge.