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Summary and Reviews of Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

Harlem Shuffle

by Colson Whitehead
  • BookBrowse Review:
  • Critics' Consensus (7):
  • First Published:
  • Sep 14, 2021, 336 pages
  • Paperback:
  • Aug 2022, 336 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

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.

"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. 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 all the time.

Cash 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 knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn't ask questions, either.

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. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes.

Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see 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's ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City 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.

But mostly, it's a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.

CHAPTER ONE

His cousin Freddie brought him on the heist one hot night in early June. Ray Carney was having one of his run-around days—uptown, downtown, zipping across the city. Keeping the machine humming. First up was Radio Row, to unload the final three consoles, two RCAs and a Magnavox, and pick up the TV he left. He'd given up on the radios, hadn't sold one in a year and a half no matter how much he marked them down and begged. Now they took up space in the basement that he needed for the new recliners coming in from Argent next week and whatever he picked up from the dead lady's apartment that afternoon. The radios were top-of-the-line three years ago; now padded blankets hid their slick mahogany cabinets, fastened by leather straps to the truck bed. The pickup bounced in the unholy rut of the West Side Highway.

Just that morning there was another article in the Tribune about the city tearing down the elevated highway. Narrow and indifferently cobblestoned, the road ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
The questions, discussion topics, and other material that follow are intended to enhance your group's conversation about Pulitzer Prize−winning author Colson Whitehead's Harlem Shuffle, a story of New York in the 1960s and how one neighborhood in Harlem learns to navigate the shadows and gleaming lights of a city on the brink of revolution, even as one man confronts the ghosts of his, and Harlem's, beautiful and tragic past.
  1. Carney is described as being "only slightly bent when it came to being crooked, in practice and ambition" (page 31)—suggesting a more nuanced understanding of seemingly criminal activity. How does his placement on the crooked spectrum change throughout the course of the novel? How does his ...
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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

Whitehead is a masterful writer, able to present characters and scenes that draw us in with fast-paced action, while also slowing down to provide enough gratifying and diverting details that allow us to enjoy the historical backdrop where the excitement unfolds. He is cerebral enough to pepper his deceptively simple prose with reflections upon double consciousness, race theory and criticisms of capitalism and privilege. At the same time, while we're entertained, surprised and intellectually stimulated by the novel's outstanding execution, somewhere a beating heart is missing. The novel is so plot-driven and filled with so much, that Whitehead overlooks delving into the rich internal lives...continued

Full Review Members Only (650 words)

(Reviewed by Jennifer Hon Khalaf).

Media Reviews

NPR
I especially enjoyed Whitehead's prose, so vividly cinematic it brought to mind some of my favorite gritty heist films...[E]very paragraph is full of authentic voices...Colson Whitehead has a couple of Pulitzers under his belt, along with several other awards celebrating his outstanding novels. Harlem Shuffle is a suspenseful crime thriller that's sure to add to the tally — it's a fabulous novel you must read.

New York Times
Whitehead's sweet, sweaty, authoritative, densely peopled portrait of a Harlem in near perpetual summer is the most successful part of the book...Except for a couple of potted histories, Whitehead's research in Harlem Shuffle feels richly integrated with the story; he knows the people of Harlem in the 1960s; and the people are just that: real people...[W]hile I valued Whitehead's attempt to write a serene character on the verge of success — extremely hard to pull off in fiction — I longed for the taut prose of The Nickel Boys.

Booklist (starred review)
Whitehead delivers a portrait of Harlem in the early '60s, culminating with the Harlem Riot of 1964, that is brushed with lovingly etched detail and features a wonderful panoply of characters who spring to full-bodied life, blending joy, humor, and tragedy. A triumph on every level.

Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
[R]eaders will be captivated by a Dickensian array of colorful, idiosyncratic characters...As one of Whitehead's characters might say of their creator, When you're hot, you're hot.

Library Journal (starred review)
The stakes here aren't as high, or the subject matter as heavy, as in his two recent masterworks, but Whitehead's mystery explores the intersections of Black class mobility, civil unrest, and New York City in an entertaining way. Another can't-miss from the versatile Whitehead, for readers who loved James McBride's Deacon King Kong.

Publishers Weekly (starred review)
[A] sizzling heist novel...It's a superlative story, but the most impressive achievement is Whitehead's loving depiction of a Harlem 60 years gone...Don't be surprised if this one wins Whitehead another major award.

Reader Reviews

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Beyond the Book



Harlem and the End of the Civil Rights Era

Vintage souvenir postcard featuring image of the Theresa Hotel in HarlemHarlem, a neighborhood in Upper Manhattan, was a crucial setting during the Civil Rights Era, which spanned approximately 1950 to 1964, arguably culminating with the passage of the controversial Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Great Migration in the early 20th century brought a considerable number of Black residents to the neighborhood, and it became a hotbed of cultural growth and political activism during the Harlem Renaissance in the 1920s and '30s. This period set the scene for the legal and social strides made during the revolutionary Civil Rights Era.

Harlem was the nexus for many important figures, places and key events in 20th-century Black history. Langston Hughes wrote many powerful poems while in Harlem, and Dr. Martin Luther ...

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Read-Alikes

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