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A review by peebee
Cotton Comes to Harlem by Chester Himes
4.0
Just fine pulp detective novel, though it's really disorienting to read a book that's about an area that makes up about 100 square blocks that you spent eight years running long distance in. Probably not a block I didn't at least jog through, and I lived within about five blocks of probably 80% of the action in the book (across 5 apartments of the 7 I lived in in NYC, and two ex-girlfriend's places).
A very different place in the 20-teens than the late 80s, so a lot of what he's talking about is gone (missed the Lenox Lounge by months). Since most everything's gone I can't really gainsay the accuracy of it, but he gets the location of the Cotton Club insanely wrong, putting it like ten blocks north and four-five longblocks east (and yea, I know there were three, the one I know is the one that was there when the time the book was written and has been since). I think it's located in the book at the spot it was originally, which was shut down in like the 30s.
So being able to fact check and pick out a Harlem Mistake here and there like I'm an old timey street peddler biting a gold coin to see if it's real was fun.
A very different place in the 20-teens than the late 80s, so a lot of what he's talking about is gone (missed the Lenox Lounge by months). Since most everything's gone I can't really gainsay the accuracy of it, but he gets the location of the Cotton Club insanely wrong, putting it like ten blocks north and four-five longblocks east (and yea, I know there were three, the one I know is the one that was there when the time the book was written and has been since). I think it's located in the book at the spot it was originally, which was shut down in like the 30s.
So being able to fact check and pick out a Harlem Mistake here and there like I'm an old timey street peddler biting a gold coin to see if it's real was fun.