For a lucky few kids, summer means going someplace special.
For Benji in Colson Whitehead’s very
funny novel, that place is SAG HARBOR (Anchor, $15.95), the
enclave where the families of New York’s black
professionals go. Benji and his younger brother are treated as a single
entity
by their friends, but during this summer of 1985, 15-year-old Benji
states that
he’s now Ben. Yet as much as he wants to declare his independence, he
also
wants to connect with his friends. As one of the few black kids at a
Manhattan
prep school, he decides it’s time to learn the latest slang, the hand
jive, the
newest dances. None of this is easy for Ben because he’s a geek more
comfortable
with playing Dungeons and Dragons than with getting down. Whitehead
shows how
Benji navigates through the summer with his pals and his job at the
waffle
shop, where he’s always covered in more batter than his co-workers are. Deb
Morris
