Harlem Shuffle

 By Colson Whitehead

Doubleday     2021

336 pages     Thriller/Noir

Where to start? First of all: an apology. I had not read either of Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novels, The Underground Railroad or Nickel Boys when I began Harlem Shuffle. And I can’t believe my ignorance of such an incredible author! I started the year with probably the most engaging book I will read all year.

Here is the brief synopsis from the Amazon website. “Colson Whitehead’s latest is a blisteringly entertaining novel of schemers and dreamers, mobsters and crooks, elaborate heists and furniture fronts, and the thrilling mischief of those who are up to no good and others who are just trying to make a living. Caught between his family’s penchant for shady deals and his desire to be clean, Ray Carney sits at the center of this swirling drama set in 1960s Harlem. A tribute to the city, the momentum of life, and the duality that lies in each of us, Harlem Shuffle is a lot of fun to read and another great offering by two-time Pulitzer Prize winning author Colson Whitehead”

Ray Carney is a marvelously-developed character. The moral dilemma he presents is so real, so present that the reader almost forgets that the book takes place in the 1960s. Except the 1960s are ever present in the background of the plot: the protests, the gentrification of New York City, the development of the World Trade Center. The marvelous review in The Atlantic comments on this:

“In the moral universe of Harlem Shuffle, the honest in honest work is literal. The novel privileges the perspectives of its avowed criminals—thieves, mobsters, and prostitutes, all candid about the nature of their profession—over those who have convinced themselves that their dubious machinations are ethical, which is to say bankers, real-estate developers, and the suits who work to find them loopholes.” 

I think the thing that impressed and amazed me the most is the density, creativity, and the brilliance of the writing. I found myself laughing at many of the comments of the characters or the description of a particular setting. Here is one description of Ray Carney’s career. “An outside observer might get the idea that Carney trafficked quite frequently in stolen goods, but that’s not how he saw it. There was a natural flow of goods in and out and through people’s lives, from here to there, a churn of property, and Ray Carney facilitated that churn. As a middleman. Legit.” Or the description of a waitress:  “Certainly she hadn’t quit show business, waitressing being a line of work where you had to play to even the cheapest of seats.” Whitehead describes Times Square around midnight as an” incandescent, stupefying bazaar.”

This is not your typical noir fiction because the subject is far more universal than that. Today, for instance, I greeted two acquaintances who are honest in the same way Ray and his buddies are honest—they are just trying to make a buck, feed their families, and put gas in their cars. If, on occasion, they deal in questionable behavior, well, it is all part of the gig. I recognized the characters Ray and Pepper and Freddy and Linus in the Kalamazoo characters Walt and Lawrence and Ken who call me looking for work. Vox calls Harlem Shuffle a morality play. It is indeed.

On the other hand, I found it a difficult book to get through, in part, because of the number of characters to keep track of and also because I wanted to savor every word. I’d start each reading thinking to myself, “Where was I?” I absorbed the history of New York City in the brilliant way Whitehead presented that history in the same way the citizens of Harlem and the rest of the city absorbed the history—the good, the bad, and the ugly!

I think anyone who wants to read brilliant fiction should read Harlem Shuffle, but be prepared to devote your heart and soul into the book—and also a lot of time. Harlem Shuffle demands everything you’ve got!