I did not enjoy this book as much as I thought I would. The author creates a story about elevators but is it really, or a vehicle to express racism in America during the period it was written about. I enjoy a good story and just don't want to spend a great deal of time on what the author is really expressing in his writing. Maybe it would be better to say I am not a fan of metaphors.

Whitehead uses a fictional city department (Elevator Inspectors) to explore race relations, the tension between fact- and faith- based wisdom, and the strange evolution of urban space. His light touch, dry wit, and good heart make for a wonderful first novel. The city he creates is almost familiar, but not quite; the characters that live there are one level below hyperbolic; the enigmatic prophet that creeps through the storyline is just homely enough to be believed. I'm happy to discover that Whitehead has quite a few other novels.

This was just too far out there for my taste.

The writing is so dense, it slowed me down. What does that unusual metaphor mean? What is this paragraph (which started 25 sentences earlier) about anyway?

There's some powerful stuff about what it feels like to be black in America, and Whitehead convincingly creates an alternate reality in which elevators are super-important. In an especially satisfying scene, the main character (who is hyper-focused on her career and doesn't form connections to other people) shares a mutually beneficial dance with a poor old man.