Take a photo of a barcode or cover
barbarahallforrest 's review for:
Harlem Shuffle
by Colson Whitehead
In a departure from the gravitas of his previous novels, Colson Whitehead delivers an entertaining crime caper.
Ray Carney thinks of himself as "bent, but not crooked." Growing up in Harlem in the early 1960, the son of a lifelong crook, Ray manages to pull himself up by the bootstraps and graduate from college and become a respected furniture store owner. Money is tight and with a wife and his second baby on the way, Ray constantly feels the pressure to have enough to cover monthly expenses. On occasion, he has been a small time fence for his petty criminal cousin Freddie. Then Ray gets involved in a major robbery scheme via Freddie, setting in motion both external and internal threats to the life Ray has worked and struggled so hard to achieve.
Throughout the narrative, the historical locale and time period of Harlem is conveyed in lively and exuberant detail (easy to imagine this as a film). The people in Ray's life -- his family, in-laws, co workers, big and petty criminals, police officers -- are portrayed with nuance and give further depth to the entire novel. The dialogue is often hilarious and richly adds to the story's ambience.
On one level, though this book fits easily into the crime caper genre, Whitehead's writing elevates his story into an indictment against racism and political corruption, a funny and often heartbreaking family story, and mostly, a vibrant and loving portrayal of the New York neighborhood of Harlem.
Ray Carney thinks of himself as "bent, but not crooked." Growing up in Harlem in the early 1960, the son of a lifelong crook, Ray manages to pull himself up by the bootstraps and graduate from college and become a respected furniture store owner. Money is tight and with a wife and his second baby on the way, Ray constantly feels the pressure to have enough to cover monthly expenses. On occasion, he has been a small time fence for his petty criminal cousin Freddie. Then Ray gets involved in a major robbery scheme via Freddie, setting in motion both external and internal threats to the life Ray has worked and struggled so hard to achieve.
Throughout the narrative, the historical locale and time period of Harlem is conveyed in lively and exuberant detail (easy to imagine this as a film). The people in Ray's life -- his family, in-laws, co workers, big and petty criminals, police officers -- are portrayed with nuance and give further depth to the entire novel. The dialogue is often hilarious and richly adds to the story's ambience.
On one level, though this book fits easily into the crime caper genre, Whitehead's writing elevates his story into an indictment against racism and political corruption, a funny and often heartbreaking family story, and mostly, a vibrant and loving portrayal of the New York neighborhood of Harlem.