The Intuitionist by Colson Whitehead ** (of 4)

The guild of elevator inspectors is divided in two. Empiricists measure and document an elevator's safety features. Intuitionists can ride a car up and down and sense with certainty the security of gears, levers, and pulleys. Whitehead's signature is to provide exceptionally deep research, in this case on the history, personalities, and mechanics of mechanical elevation and then blur his writing into fiction and ultimately mysticism. He used the same technique in subsequent novels, notably The Underground Railroad.

The Intuitionist is simultaneously parable and parody of race relations in an unnamed American city that has to be New York. While the book deserves high praise for its inventiveness and stylistic ingenuity it also takes work from the reader. Myriad short scenes begin in the middle with several pages passing before it is clear which character is under discussion and in which locale. You must also be comfortable feeling great about learning things you did not know about elevators, but not being confident at all about when you have tripped over the line from fact to fiction.