Harlem Shuffle
from the author of The Underground Railroad
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4.0 • 30 Ratings
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- $12.99
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD (Now a major Amazon Prime TV show)
'Dazzling' Guardian
'Gloriously entertaining' Evening Standard
'A rich, wild book' New York Times
'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 façade 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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Two-time Pulitzer winner Whitehead (The Nickel Boys) returns with a sizzling heist novel set in civil rights–era Harlem. It's 1959 and Ray Carney has built an "unlikely kingdom" selling used furniture. A husband, a father, and the son of a man who once worked as muscle for a local crime boss, Carney is "only slightly bent when it to being crooked." But when his cousin Freddie—whose stolen goods Carney occasionally fences through his furniture store—decides to rob the historic Hotel Theresa, a lethal cast of underworld figures enter Carney's life, among them the mobster Chink Montague, "known for his facility with a straight razor"; WWII veteran Pepper; and the murderous, purple-suited Miami Joe, Whitehead's answer to No Country for Old Men's Anton Chigurh. These and other characters force Carney to decide just how bent he wants to be. 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.
Customer Reviews
Chester Himes redux
Author
American. This is his eighth novel. His sixth and seventh, The Underground Railroad (2016) and The Nickel Boys (2019), both won the Pulitzer for fiction, which makes him the only living two-time winner, and the only African-American two time winner (see footnote). The Underground Railroad also won a National Book Award, and several others.
In brief
Ray Carney runs a Harlem furniture store, and is “only slightly bent when it came to being crooked.” The three parts of the novel set in 1959, 1961 and 1964, explore Ray’s attempts to better himself, look after his wife and children, and convince his in-laws he’s better than they think. Trouble is, his father was a local leg breaker who came to a premature end, and his cousin, who operates on the wrong side of the law, is forever leading our boy into temptation. The parts are linked by Ray’s long planned revenge against a black banker who encouraged him to apply to join an exclusive men’s club of which his father-in-law is a member, accepted a bribe to that end, then blackballed him. According to reviews I have read by people who should know, the descriptions of contemporary Harlem are accurate as well as evocative.
Writing
Mr Whitehead is a Harvard-educated writer of upper middle class origin with a bibliography that shows he is capable of embracing various literary styles. His two most recent novels were deadly serious in content and intent, and drew hagiographic praise from many people of colour in particular. Based on some of the reviews I have read, this book, with its lighter tone (I’m talking mood not skin colour) appears to have shaken that devotion. I’m just an old white guy, but I found Mr W’s observations on American racism here no less acute for being made with the comedic touches of noir crime literature: a tribute to Chester Himes rather than Baldwin, or Faulkner. That having been said, there was a lot more telling than showing, by which I mean the nasty stuff in particular, which occurs “off stage” in the main. Specifically, I would like to have seen more of the character named Pepper in action. Also, I have a good memory and found it annoying when Mr W felt it necessary to remind readers of scenes in previous sections. Mr Graham’s narration was superb.
Bottom line
Mr Whitehead is highly talented writer at the top of his game. In an interview, I heard him say that he commenced this novel before The Nickel Boys, then put it aside, before returning to it during pandemic lockdown. I suspect he may have binge-watched The Godfather of Harlem too.
Footnote
The other two-time winners of the Pulitzer for fiction were: Booth Tarkington, William Faulkner, and John Updike. FYI, Booth Tarkington was regarded as America’s greatest living novelist in the 1910s and 1920s (The Magnificent Ambersons and Alice Adams are his best known works.) If you don’t know who Faulkner and Updike are, my advice is don’t waste your time reading book reviews.
Harlem window
An engaging and sometimes touching insight into the mind of a black man born into low grade criminality in 1950s New York striving to succeed without succumbing to the laws of the jungle.