Apex Hides the Hurt is the latest chapter in Colson Whitehead's impressive and expanding fictional canon. Like Tom Robbins or Kurt Vonnegut any tale by Colson has depth way beyond the surface material and challenges my beliefs on life, race, history and the ultimate search for meaning. You can still see all customer reviews for the product. It’s been a long week! What is the name that will give me the dignity and respect that is my right? I honestly didn’t expect to enjoy this book. All rights reserved.PopMatters is wholly independent, women-owned and operated. The tension between these two opposing parties should be at the heart of this book, but I just couldn't bring myself to care (possibly because the alternative to the town's current name is just silly). Jesus and Alice Cooper are tighter than you think, but a young Jim White was taught to treat them as polar opposites. Ultimately it is resolved after much fighting. Veuillez réessayer. Whitehead's narrator (who remains nameless) is a marketer with a knack for perfectly naming products. Prime members enjoy FREE Delivery and exclusive access to music, movies, TV shows, original audio series, and Kindle books. Thinking about this wonderful book, images, names, and themes rise not just to the surface but to that apex where the exhilarating overview makes the reader forget disturbing, dislocated, lonely story that has just unfolded. It's a painful, stale way to live, and Whitehead provides an intimate look into it. Its a good book depending on what youre reading it for. Regina Goode, descendent of the freed slaves who originally founded the town, wants the town to be named Freedom, the name the ex-slaves chose before Winthrop moved in. I needed to read it for class and was relieved that it was very slim and didn’t seem to have difficult prose for me to trudge through. Whitehead is a truly original thinker. Apex finds the narrator at the beginning of his long climb back up. Reviewed in the United States on March 26, 2006. Reviewed in the United States on 30 March 2006, "You call something by a name, you fix it in place. From the MacArthur and Whiting Award–winning author of John Henry Days and The Intuitionist comes a new, brisk, comic tour de force about identity,history, and the adhesive bandage industry When the citizens of Winthrop needed a new name for their town, they did what anyone would do—they hired a consultant. It’s a proposition that’s bringing up some painful history: Winthrop was originally founded by escaped slaves, who called it Freedom, and the town’s mayor is advocating a reversion to that name; it was then named Winthrop after a wealthy white family who set up a barbed wire manufacturing business in the area, profiting off the labour of the Black population but also, crucially, helping to legitimise them; and now, finally, the tech magnate who’s recently moved his business to the town wants to christen it New Prospera. The plot wasn’t very shocking or gripping but it was easy to see the underlying themes and ideas, especially about consumerism and marketing. APEX HIDES THE HURT is a highly recommendable novel. It's a proposition that's bringing up some painful history: Winthrop was originally founded by escaped slaves, who called it… Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 5 July 2006. He comes to the town and quickly finds conflict ensuing between the founders of Winthrop and other powerful individuals who all want their preferred name to be chosen. Gets Right (and Wrong) About America, Electrosoul's Flõstate Find "Home Ground" on Stunning Song (premiere), Orchestra Baobab Celebrate 50 Years with Vinyl of '​Specialist in All Styles', The Budos Band Call for Action on "The Wrangler" (premiere), Creature Comfort's "Woke Up Drunk" Ruminates on Our Second-Guesses (premiere), Brett Newski Plays Slacker Prankster on "What Are You Smoking?" Reviewed in the United States on December 18, 2014, Reviewed in the United States on October 12, 2009. This novel receives the highest compliment I can give: 8 years after I read it, I am still thinking about it. Considering the money I spent on it and the fact that it was shipped overseas, the price was right. Every facial twitch had its own score. If you're a reader, that is, if you have time to sit down and read a book that isn't going to rock your world then go ahead and read this. Apex Hides the Hurt Colson Whitehead Doubleday Hardcover 224 pages March 2006. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Your recently viewed items and featured recommendations, Select the department you want to search in, Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2018. Prime members enjoy FREE Delivery and exclusive access to music, movies, TV shows, original audio series, and Kindle books. Reviewed in the United States on 28 November 2018. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. Colson Whitehead's Apex Hides The Hurt takes a satirical look at the question and the answer, but also ingeniously blends in other aspects of cultural spoofs as we follow the adventures of a quirky (somewhat weird) "nomenclature consultant." It seems he's a specialist in naming products who has been hired to help the town figure out what its new name (if any) will be. As Apex Hides the Hurt makes painfully clear, names are temporary things, seldom expressing the essential truth. Colson Whitehead’s Apex Hides the Hurt follows an unnamed “nomenclature consultant” (someone who specialises in naming new products) who’s hired by the council of a small American town called Winthrop which is considering changing its name. Reviewed in the United States on March 2, 2014. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. I've read all his fiction and the poker book, and enjoyed them all. As in "John Henry Days", the story follows a polished, semi-hip, professional black New Yorker as he ventures to the hinterlands (here a small Midwesternish town) for a work assignment. Apex's brightest spot is in the nameless protagonist's search for self-identity. Page Count: 208. Doctor Who Review: Ascension of the Cybermen, Follow The English Student on WordPress.com. Never miss another post - enter your email to receive notifications of new posts. A thing or a person, it didn't matter - the name you gave it allowed you to draw a bead, take aim, shoot. I am a huge fan of Whitehead's first novel (The Intuitionist) and found his second (John Henry Days) flawed but well worth reading. Enjoy this excerpt of Wild Things: The Disorder of Desire, wherein Jack Halberstam offers an alternative history of sexuality by tracing the ways in which wildness has been associated with queerness and queer bodies throughout the 20th century.