Listen free for 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
Premium Plus auto-renews for $14.95/mo + applicable taxes after 30 days. Cancel anytime.
John Henry Days cover art

John Henry Days

Written by: Colson Whitehead
Narrated by: Peter Jay Fernandez
Try for $0.00

$14.95 per month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $68.39

Buy Now for $68.39

Pay using card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice. Tax where applicable.

Publisher's Summary

J. Sutter is a bonafide junketeer - a freelance writer, travelling from city to city, hungry for free meals and the discarded sales receipts of others to claim on his expense account.

Travelling into the backwoods of West Virginia to write a piece on the unveiling of the new John Henry postage stamp and the ensuing John Henry Days festival, J. continues his nearly record-setting, three-month junket binge. But when he begins to choke on a piece of prime rib at a press dinner, shadows from the past are summoned forth and he leaves the mountain a changed man.

Colson Whitehead is the author of the critically acclaimed, QPB New Voices Award-winning novel, The Intuitionist. Narrated by Peter Jay Fernandez, John Henry Days is both an ingenious retelling of the American legend of John Henry and a fascinating look into the world of contemporary journalism.

©2001 Colson Whitehead (P)2001 Recorded Books

What the critics say

"Does what writing should do; it refreshes our sense of the world....An ambitious, finely chiseled work. (John Updike, The New Yorker)
"Masterfully composed and full of myth and magic....deftly skewering the absurdities of the information age." (Booklist)

What listeners say about John Henry Days

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.