Susan D. (soozie321) reviewed on + 25 more book reviews
"Magical...ranks alongside Catch-22, V, The Bluest Eye and other groundbreaking first novels...Whitehead shares Heller's sense of the absurd, Phynchon's operative expansiveness and Morrison's deconstruction of race and racism." SF Chronicle.
Two warring factions in the Dept of Elevator Inspectors in a bustling metropolis vie for dominance: The Empiricists, who go by the book and rigorously check every structural and mechanical detail, and the Intuitionists, whose observational methods involve meditation and instinct. Lila Mae Watson, the city's first black female inspector and a devout Intuitionist with the highest accuracy rate in the dept, is at the center of the turmoil. An elevator in a new municipal building has crashed on Lila Mae's watch, fanning the flames of the Empiricist-Intuitionist feud and compelling Lila Mae to go underground to investigate. As she endeavors to clear her name, she becomes entangled in a web of intrigue that leads her to a secret that will change her life forever.
Two warring factions in the Dept of Elevator Inspectors in a bustling metropolis vie for dominance: The Empiricists, who go by the book and rigorously check every structural and mechanical detail, and the Intuitionists, whose observational methods involve meditation and instinct. Lila Mae Watson, the city's first black female inspector and a devout Intuitionist with the highest accuracy rate in the dept, is at the center of the turmoil. An elevator in a new municipal building has crashed on Lila Mae's watch, fanning the flames of the Empiricist-Intuitionist feud and compelling Lila Mae to go underground to investigate. As she endeavors to clear her name, she becomes entangled in a web of intrigue that leads her to a secret that will change her life forever.
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