Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
Carney is a respectable merchant of reasonably priced furniture on 125th Street, providing a good living for his family and himself. If his wife Elizabeth’s parents on Striver’s Row don’t like him or their small flat across from the underground lines, it’s still home. He and Elizabeth are expecting their second child.
Few people are aware of his ancestry as an uptown thug and crook, as well as the fact that his apparent normalcy has more than a few gaps in it. cracks that are constantly expanding. Ray doesn’t inquire about the occasional ring or necklace that his cousin Freddie drops over because money is scarce, especially with all those sofas on instalment plans. He is aware of a taciturn jeweller in the downtown area who is also unobtrusive.
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
219 used from $1.75
Free shipping
Amazon.com
Then, Freddie joins a group that intends to plunder the Hotel Theresa (the book) and offers Ray’s assistance as the fence. Heists rarely go according to plan, and this one did not. Ray now has a new clientele that includes unscrupulous police officers, violent neighbourhood gang members, two-bit pornographers, and other miscellaneous Harlem lowlifes.
The internal struggle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook starts at this point. As Ray manages this double existence, he starts to realize who in Harlem is really in charge. Can Ray survive, save his cousin, and take home a piece of the large haul while still upholding his position as the go-to person for all things pertaining to high-quality home furnishings?
The clever plot of Harlem Shuffle is presented in a gorgeously realized early 1960s New York City. It is a family saga presented as a criminal book, a funny morality play, a social novel about power and race, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem. It’s a joy to read, though, and Colson Whitehead, the winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award, has done it again.
This book is definitely worth reading. It offers the reader a close-up view of Harlem in the early 1960s, a time period that many people have heard of but few have ever seen. This historical perspective is primarily given by Ray Carney, a morally upright proprietor of a furniture store on 125th street. We observe the daily challenges of the people who live in Harlem. Carney is a person having conflicting personality traits. The strangeness of some of the individuals and events has a sort of perversely forbidden humour.
