FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD (Now a major Amazon Prime TV show)ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR 'Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked...'To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably-priced furniture, making a life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home.Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his fa ade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger and bigger all the time.See, cash is tight, especially with all those instalment plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace at the furniture store, Ray doesn't see the need to ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweller downtown who also doesn't ask questions. Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa - the 'Waldorf of Harlem' - and volunteers Ray's services as the fence. The heist doesn't go as planned; they rarely do, after all. Now Ray has to cater to a new clientele, one made up of shady cops on the take, vicious minions of the local crime lord, and numerous other Harlem lowlifes.Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he starts to see the truth about 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 Shuffle is driven by an ingeniously intricate plot that plays out in a beautifully recreated Harlem of the early 1960s. It's 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.
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Harlem Shuffle
FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD (Now a major Amazon Prime TV show)ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF THE YEAR 'Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked...'To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably-priced furniture, making a life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home.Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his fa ade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger and bigger all the time.See, cash is tight, especially with all those instalment plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace at the furniture store, Ray doesn't see the need to ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweller downtown who also doesn't ask questions. Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa - the 'Waldorf of Harlem' - and volunteers Ray's services as the fence. The heist doesn't go as planned; they rarely do, after all. Now Ray has to cater to a new clientele, one made up of shady cops on the take, vicious minions of the local crime lord, and numerous other Harlem lowlifes.Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he starts to see the truth about 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 Shuffle is driven by an ingeniously intricate plot that plays out in a beautifully recreated Harlem of the early 1960s. It's 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.
Popular Reviews(2)
Reviewed by BennoI never really got into the book and the story was not for me.
Reviewed by ken"One was fast and one was slow, and it was the same for stickups and stakeouts. Stickups were chops—they cook fast and hot, you’re in and out. A stakeout was ribs—fire down low, slow, taking your time." For a thriller novel, this classifies as a definite rib—the tension cooked low and slow, upheld with the smoke and mirrors of the prose, until the action happens. Colson Whitehead's prose style has this hefty quality about it. Prose that demands to be heeded, not the kind that is swift to be digested. My sibling commented on how it's taking me "too long to read [<i>Harlem Shuffle</i>] and I said it was because it requires attention, because it does. The attention you give this book is the reward in itself. The part that reels me in the most is the way Whitehead gestures to the New York that towers behind him. And honestly, this book also made me realize that I <i>am</i> in love with New York. But only insofar as I see it in books, movies, music. So when they show me New York in <i>Funny Girl</i>, that's the New York I love. When LCD Soundsystem sings about how he loves New York but it's bringing him down, that's the New York I love. And the grit and dimension of Harlem that Colson Whitehead writes about? That's the New York I love. And—he's only in the book briefly but Zippo is my favourite character. He's an artist, forced to do work that sells instead. He says in my favourite scene in the entire book, "to give oneself to the camera, it's a complicated dance. Society burdens us with these hang-ups—" And then, "that's why people dig my boudoir photographs. Seeing it can be the same thing as doing it." But. I must admit—the ending dragged too much for my taste.