A review by booklane
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

medium-paced

• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

 
A sweeping, irony-filled dark comedy on ambition, racism, class, revenge.

Carney is a furniture seller in Harlem. Coming from a crooked family but ambitiously striving for respectability and status, he has gone to college, opened a shop and married a black woman from a higher social class, whose parents, however, look down on him. Brilliantly flawed, beneath his respectable facade he has maintained a crooked side to his business -- just to round-up a little bit. Things come to a head when he finds himself entangled in a heist, involving a robbery at Theresa, Harlem’s version of the Waldorf Astoria.

Carney’s flawed logic and the way he absolves himself, his ambition and desire for vendetta are the thread that goes through the book, subtle, ironic and absolutely enjoyable. The family drama and the heist side of the plot are interesting but unroll slowly and nearly a pretext, and tend to get lost in the details and the asides; what really stands out is the vibrant, fine-grained reconstruction of 1960-ies Harlem (and Manhattan, thanks to the characters’ forays into the city, from Radio Row, Times Square, Upper East Side) caught in a period of social change up to the Harlem riots. The rendering of the hustle and bustle is simply glorious, it makes you feel you are there or want to be there; and even the fact that Carney owns a furniture store allows for more immersion and nostalgia as we visualise the environments and details, from the dinettes to the futuristic space-age sofas. Whitehead maps the different streets and neighbourhoods and introduces us to all types, from “strivers”, appropriately residing on Strivers’ Row, to “crooks” as he perceptively highlights the class differences within the Black community in a sociographic analysis that eschews stereotypes and is always peppered with soul, character and colour.

The way Whitehead tells this story reminded me of one of those mafia movies where the main character tells the back story and reveals his hidden crookedness with irony and nostalgia. Very different from The Nickel Boys, which was more propulsive, solemn and streamlined and used a direct, accessible language. At times one feels there is too much detail in which the reader can get lost; yet the storytelling, the use of slang, the pitch, the way he puts things is nothing short of superb and had me highlight quotes over quotes, just to be able to savour them.

My thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book