Harlem Shuffle

by Colson Whitehead

Other authorsOliver Munday (Cover designer)

Ebook, 2020

Description

To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Strivers Row dont approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, its still home. Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesnt ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesnt ask questions, either. Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresathe Waldorf of Harlemand volunteers Rays services as the fence. The heist doesnt go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes. Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs? Harlem Shuffles ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. Its a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem. But mostly, its a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.… (more)

Media reviews

Los Angeles Review of Books

Already having tackled everything from zombies to metaphorical railroads, Whitehead turned to noir and humor for his latest release, Harlem Shuffle. At once a character study about a furniture salesman living in New York City in the early 1960s and a narrative that explores how even good people can

be slightly crooked for all the right reasons, Harlem Shuffle is a funny, violent novel that doubles as a love letter to New York City’s seedy underbelly and the plethora of characters that made it unique....Harlem Shuffle is many things. On the surface, it is a crime novel with a family saga at its core. However, as readers have come to expect from Whitehead, the narrative is also an exploration of race and power dynamics that coexists with a story about the eternal battle between ethics and need whenever money enters the equation.

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National Public Radio (NPR)

A heist with a cast of zany characters, tongue-in-cheek dialogue, questionable criminal skills, and of course, a bumbling, incompetent thief or two are undoubtedly part of the charm of Colson Whitehead's Harlem Shuffle. But the novel is also a powerful tale of a man's love for his family and the

neighborhood where he lives. And the man at the center of that tale is a devastatingly enjoyable character who has a true gift for words — if not always the smartest actions.

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The New York Times

“Harlem Shuffle” brings Whitehead’s unwavering eloquence — at one point he describes traffic as “honking molasses” — to a mix of city history, niche hangouts, racial stratification, high hopes and low individuals....Though it’s a slightly slow starter, “Harlem Shuffle” has

dialogue that crackles, a final third that nearly explodes, hangouts that invite even if they’re Chock Full o’ Nuts and characters you won’t forget even if they don’t stick around for more than a few pages.

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Kirkus Reviews

Throughout, readers will be captivated by a Dickensian array of colorful, idiosyncratic characters, from itchy-fingered gangsters to working-class women with a low threshold for male folly. What’s even more impressive is Whitehead’s densely layered, intricately woven rendering of New York City

in the Kennedy era, a time filled with both the bright promise of greater economic opportunity and looming despair due to the growing heroin plague. It's a city in which, as one character observes, “everybody’s kicking back or kicking up. Unless you’re on top.” As one of Whitehead’s characters might say of their creator, When you’re hot, you’re hot.

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Publisher's Weekly

It’s a superlative story, but the most impressive achievement is Whitehead’s loving depiction of a Harlem 60 years gone—“that rustling, keening thing of people and concrete”—which lands as detailed and vivid as Joyce’s Dublin. Don’t be surprised if this one wins Whitehead another

major award.

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National Book Review

Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle continues his success as one of the literary giants of our time. One of his past novels, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Underground Railroad, confronts the vestiges of slavery and another, The Nickel Boys, tackles racism in the Jim Crow justice system. With Harlem

Shuffle, Whitehead depicts another American era, bringing 1960s Harlem back to life. In this mixed-genre — family saga and crime — story.... Like Whitehead’s previous award-winning novels, Harlem Shuffle exudes authorial power and profound insight into the American experiment. In this multi-layered crime narrative, Whitehead presents complex characters who embody the complexity of their social milieu. Like America, Harlem’s stratified beauty is symbolic of the constant tension between those who are corrupt and those who are trying to lead a respectable existence. Ultimately, the power of Whitehead’s mixed-genre narrative is his exploration and insight into the duplicitous mindset of the American consciousness.

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