Harlem Shuffle: A Novel
- ISBN-10
- 0385545142
- ISBN-13
- 9780385545143
- Series
- Harlem Shuffle
- Category
- Fiction
- Pages
- 320
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2021-09-14
- Publisher
- Anchor
- Author
- Colson Whitehead
Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, this gloriously entertaining novel is “fast-paced, keen-eyed and very funny ... about race, power and the history of Harlem all disguised as a thrill-ride crime novel" (San Francisco Chronicle). "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.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Harlem Shuffle: Roman
By Colson WhiteheadSprickor som blir hela tiden blir större.Harlem Shuffle är en genialt konstruerad berättelse som utspelar sig i det tidiga 1960-talets Harlem.
-
The Underground Railroad: A Novel
By Colson WhiteheadThe Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman's will to escape the horrors of bondage--and a powerful meditation on the history we all share.
-
The Nickel Boys
By Colson WhiteheadElwood is sentenced to a juvenile reformatory called the Nickel Academy, whose mission statement says it provides 'physical, intellectual and moral training' so the delinquent boys in their charge can become 'honorable and honest men'.
-
Harlem Shuffle: A Novel
By Colson WhiteheadHarlem Shuffle's ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s.
-
New York, New York, New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation
By Thomas DyjaBy 1978, Disco was for Studio 54 and Xenon; Punk and New Wave were south of 14th, and Hip Hop competed with the horns and timbales of Latin Fania for Sound of the Streets. Most of those streets, though, were empty.
-
John Henry Days
By Colson WhiteheadOn another level it’s the story of a disaffected, middle-aged black journalist on a mission to set a record for junketeering who attends the annual John Henry Days festival.
-
The Intuitionist: A Novel
By Colson WhiteheadThis debut novel by the two time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys wowed critics and readers everywhere and marked the debut of an important American writer.
-
Zone One: A Novel
By Colson WhiteheadZone One unfolds over three surreal days in which Spitz is occupied with the mundane mission of straggler removal, the rigors of Post-Apocalyptic Stress Disorder (PASD), and the impossible task of coming to terms with a fallen world.
-
The Noble Hustle: Poker, Beef Jerky, and Death
By Colson WhiteheadFrom the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys • “Whitehead proves a brilliant sociologist of the poker world.” —The Boston Globe In 2011, Grantland magazine gave bestselling novelist ...
-
What Comes After: A Novel
By Joanne TompkinsThey would sit in silence for the next two hours if that was what I chose . And while being held in the light is a true gift , I wanted to speak , to do the work . But I couldn't decide where to begin . When I finally opened my mouth to ...