Amazon.co.uk Review
Lila Mae is the anti-heroine of this startling debut by American journalist Colson Whitehead. The first coloured elevator inspector in the city, she is a pupil of the Intuitionist school of thought and is able to tell what is wrong with an elevator through intuitive communication with the machinery. Most of her fellow workers however belong to the Empiricist camp, and prefer to carry out routine conventional inspections. The simmering animosity between the two factions comes to the boil when an elevator that Lila Mae has inspected unexpectedly crashes. Solitary and taciturn Lila Mae suspects a conspiracy, and when rumours start circulating of a lost black box that contains the blueprint of the perfect elevator devised by the founder of Intuitionism and Lila Mae's hero, the late James Fulton, her conviction in the philosophical beliefs of her dead mentor compels her to unearth the truth. The surreality of the plot beguiles the seriousness with which Whitehead treats his underlying themes of racial and gender tension, and the use of the elevator works as a brilliant abstract metaphor for the organisation of society within a metropolis. Whitehead litters his deftly honed prose with pithy observations on everything from the construction of individual identity to philosophical absurdities on the nature of "elevatorness". Its an absolute joy to read, and one of the most original novels to be published in 1998.

Synopsis
This urban thriller introduces black heroine, Lila Mae Watson. It is election year in the Elevator Guild and the Empiricists would love nothing better than to bring down an Intuitionist. As Lila Mae seeks to uncover the truth she is sucked into a violent whirlpool of conspiracy and deceit.

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews   1 of 1 people found the following review helpful: Intriguing, 5 Oct 1999 By A Customer This is a strange book - hard to categorise, not because it lands itself neatly into the "uncategorisable" category, but because it so nearly falls into so many others. Almost thriller, almost philosophy, almost (sometimes) a love story, the Intuitionist is more than any of these. It all revolves around a bizarre, complex plot set in a near-real world of lift maintainance staff, which is twisted just enough off the side of believable real life to be beautifully fantastic. And above, below, even beside this is Whitehead's unique thesis about the importance of lifts, and more importantly, the frailty of humankind. Fascinating, at times gripping, and thoroughly readable.  Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? (Report this) › See all customer reviews...		Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews