In this way, I read numerous portions of this book many times. Then after many paragraphs of incomprehensible blather, he finally provides context, at which point the reader would be forced to go back and reread it all again in order to gain understanding. Instead of leading with contextual information, Whitehead often dropped the reader right into random thoughts or new characters-of which there were many-without explanation. However, an even bigger problem is that the writing style didn't work for me. Perhaps I'm just not the right audience for this type of gangster noir. Now that sounds interesting enough, but for some reason, it didn't feel compelling when I was actually reading it. Carney and his friends, through schemes and poor-decision making, would cause the sort of trouble that Carney can then only straighten out via crooked ways. The book blurb promises heists, and I'm immediately thinking of well-planned and well-executed ones à la Ocean's Eleven. So due to necessity and unfortunate circumstances, he keeps getting pulled into dodgy business. He wants to lead an honest life, but that's not easy as a Black man in 1960s Harlem. Harlem Shuffle is a set of three loosely-related stories about furniture salesman and reluctant crook Ray Carney. He wants to lead an honest life, but that's not The dialogue and action were so shrouded in euphemism, so opaque in meaning and intention, alternatively dull and worrisome, that no one could decide what the play was about, if they understood it, let alone enjoyed it.I can't help but think Colson Whitehead was talking about this very book when he wrote that prescient line into it. The dialogue and action were so shrouded in euphemism, so opaque in meaning and intention, alternatively dull and worrisome, that no one could decide what the play was about, if they understood it, let alone enjoyed it.I can't help but think Colson Whitehead was talking about this very book when he wrote that prescient line into it. 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.īut mostly, it’s a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.more Harlem Shuffle’s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s.
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? As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes. The heist doesn’t go as planned they rarely do. 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. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn’t ask questions, either. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time.Ĭash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn’t ask where it comes from. 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.įew 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. “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 decent life for himself and his family. “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, mak From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s. From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.
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