Fiction Review: Harlem Shuffle

When I decided to read it for Black History Month, the first book I chose was Colson Whitehead’s “ Harlem Shuffle ,” a Christmas present for my husband. The Whitehead Underground (my opinion in the link) surprised me, and I couldn’t wait to read its latest version, which takes place in Harlem in the early 1960s.

Ray Carney has come a long way after a difficult childhood with a notorious alcoholic father and criminal. Ray runs a decent business, a furniture store on 125th Street in Harlem, with his name on display in gold letters, and is married to Elizabeth, whose parents live under the pseudonym Striver’s Row. Ray and his apartment look like the subway, but Ray dreams of a nice apartment on Riverside Drive overlooking the park. In 1959, their daughter Mae was born, and Elizabeth was pregnant with her second child. Ray’s business is going pretty well, but he feels constant pressure to pay all the bills, keep the business in the dark, so many people pay membership fees and want a better life for Elizabeth and her children. He grew up the brother of his brother Freddie, as his father often left him for a long time and remained with his aunt. He and Freddie are still close, although Freddie followed in Ray’s father’s footsteps and lived as a criminal. However, these are mostly small items, and when he occasionally offers Ray to sell “used TVs” at his store, Ray allows him to add them to legitimate used stocks and looks the other way. However, this time Freddie falls in love with the evil villains and attracts Ray, who offers his services as a barrier. The plans are to rob a luxury hotel in Harlem, and, as usual, the robbery is not going as planned. Everything happens, and Ray suddenly gets on the police radar and gets nervous because of a new criminal client ... but he makes more money. As he progresses, Ray rises in the world when he finds more and more problems in his beloved cousin. Ray is constantly moving between legal and criminal business, one foot in every world.

As always, Whitehead has a tremendous talent for attracting people to the site, place and time. In this case, the Harlem of the 1960s is so vivid and realistic that one can almost hear the sounds, smells, and fear and rage of racial riots. It penetrates all aspects of the scene and time, making you feel almost at home, and at the same time offers criminals and future black Harlem entrepreneurs (who are sometimes equally perverted). Ray is a complex and intriguing character who is trapped between two worlds, wanting to win the road in the real world and wanting to prove that he has nothing to do with his father, because he is attracted to such an attractive world of underground criminals. potential. This novel is successful on many levels: as a family drama, as a thrilling crime thriller, as a historical tale of an era of open racial conflict and a love letter to Harlem. I really enjoyed making this trip with Ray and his family.

318 pages, Double Day

This book addresses the challenges of reading in 2022 :

Pass the TBR call

Diversity Challenge (and February Mini Challenge - black)

New York (probably the first of many!) In the Literary Escape Challenge

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Listen to the audiobook here with a good story by Dion Graham and / or download it from Audible. This novel sounds great in sound!

 

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