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" THE BUZZ GENERATED by The Intuitionist (1999), Colson Whitehead&amp;#039;s first novel, had much to do with the fact that a formidable young novelist--a young black novelist--had stepped into a literary power vacuum. That he found playful, inventive ways to take on the ever-thorny issue of race made things all the more exciting. Whitehead showed he has the stuff. He has certainly felt the clutch in the gut brought on by kilowatts of extreme attention, captured in Cyril Connolly&amp;#039;s line: &amp;quot;Whom the gods wish to destroy, they first call promising.&amp;quot; The tyranny of the second book--how to trump success with more success? Whitehead has completely changed his approach with his new novel. Where The Intuitionist was close-focus, offbeat, and oblique in its devices and allegorical ploys, John Henry Days (Doubleday, $25) is big and frontal. The spirit of Pynchon gives way to the spirit of Tom Wolfe as the panoramic impulse takes over.  John Henry. The great American folk hero who went up against the steam drill and won, only to die from the terrible exertion. Now, in 1996, the town of Talcott, West Virginia, original site of the face-off, is hosting John Henry Days, a three-day festival culminating in a reenactment of the contest. Enter J. Sutter, Whitehead&amp;#039;s protagonist, a young black freelance journalist on assignment for a travel Web site, for whom John Henry Days is only the latest stop. His real goal is to see how far he can go toward making his whole life a sponsored junket. Idealism versus cynicism--a classic comic-novel premise, it would seem.  We read, we wait. How will the John Henry story--with its messages about the triumph of spirit and the expense of martyrdom--impinge on the fate of the jaded Sutter? How will Whitehead use it to illuminate the lurking racial subthemes? We anticipate a full-tilt grappling with myth, but instead Whitehead backs down, leaving us with the clatter and whir of failed connections, the reproachful silence of meanings left unexplored. The pages surge past with much skill and bursts of vigor, but they leave the exhaust of promise in their wake. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a1199/esq0501-may-mahb-culture/>