Colson Whitehead unnerves me. Every time I think I've found the thread that connects his seven books, from his stunning 1999 debut, The Intuitionist, about elevator examiners, to his best-selling zombie adventure story/existentialist dialectic, Zone One (2011), to 2014's The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky & Death, a reportorial account of the World Series of Poker, it slips through my fingers.