Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead: A review

It is the 1960s in Harlem and Ray Carney is a furniture store owner there. He also has a side business as a fence. People bring him stolen goods and he either buys and sells them or passes them on to others who will. At one point, in a conversation with another character named Pepper he describes himself as an entrepreneur. Pepper replies, "That's just a hustler who pays taxes."

Ray is a family man. When we meet him, he has a wife and daughter and another child on the way. They are his incentive to maintain respectability and legitimacy. He is, in fact, considered a man of standing in the community. But there is another influence that keeps pulling him in the opposite direction. His name is Freddie.

Freddie is Ray's cousin and he is the one who gets Ray involved in all kinds of illegal schemes and heists. The book is divided into three sections; one is set in 1959, one in 1961, and one in 1964. The first one details the major heist of a hotel that Freddie sucks his cousin into as an accessory against his will. Ray's self-image as a legal businessman takes a serious hit and his life is changed.

The fictional stick-up heist of the Hotel Theresa (a real hotel in Harlem) goes off without a hitch. The hotel is described as "the headquarters of the Negro world" so robbing it is a headline event. The description of this caper is the high point of the book. Whitehead seems to be enjoying writing it. The prose is crisp and often gleeful and downright funny. I found the two following sections of the book to be somewhat less dynamic.

In the second section, Carney is steaming over being cheated out of $500 by a sleazy Harlem banker and most of the action involves him scheming of a way to exact revenge against the banker. In the third section, Carney's moral struggles continue as he is once again involved by Freddie as an unwilling accomplice in a crime that will have tragic consequences for some of his loved ones.

Whitehead, the double Pulitzer Prize winner, has always delivered novels that are original and quirky and are notable as expansions of whatever genre they might be assigned to. So it is with Harlem Shuffle. It is essentially a crime saga but it also manages to embody cultural satire and it is a page-turning, entertaining literary novel.

And now I must confess: I finished reading this book two weeks ago and when I sat down to write my review today, I found I really couldn't remember much about it. I'm not sure what that says about this book or about me as a reader; nothing good about either, I expect. I had to resort to reading the publisher's synopsis and some of the reviews of the book to jog my memory. I can't really explain why that would be because I did enjoy the book while I was reading it, but I never really felt "connected" to any of the characters. There were no female characters or at least none of consequence and perhaps that's why it was hard for me to identify with the male characters.

So, the plot of the book was not particularly memorable for me for whatever reason. I could actually better remember The Nickel Boys. Now we only have to wait for Colson Whitehead to collect his third Pulitzer for this "unmemorable" book.

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Poetry Sunday: Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver

How about we share another Mary Oliver poem? After all, you can never have too many of those. In this one, the poet seems to acknowledge that it is often hard to simply live in and enjoy the moment, perhaps because we are afraid it can't last. She urges us to give in to that moment and fully experience the joy. Although "much can never be redeemed, still, life has some possibility left." Don't Hesitate by Mary Oliver If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still, life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happens better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is no...

Poetry Sunday: Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney

My mother was a farm wife and a prodigious canner. She canned fruit and vegetables from the garden, even occasionally meat. But the best thing that she canned, in my opinion, was blackberry jam. Even as I type those words my mouth waters! Of course, before she could make that jam, somebody had to pick the blackberries. And that somebody was quite often named Dorothy. I think Seamus Heaney might have spent some time among the briars plucking those delicious black fruits as well, so he would have known that "Once off the bush the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour." They don't keep; you have to get that jam made in a hurry! Blackberry-Picking by Seamus Heaney Late August, given heavy rain and sun For a full week, the blackberries would ripen. At first, just one, a glossy purple clot Among others, red, green, hard as a knot. You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet Like thickened wine: summer's blood was in it Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust ...

Poetry Sunday: Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman

You probably remember poet Amanda Gorman from her appearance at the inauguration of President Biden. She read her poem "The Hill We Climb" on that occasion. After the senseless slaughter in Uvalde this week, she was inspired to write another poem which was published in The New York Times. It seemed perfect for the occasion and so I stole it in order to feature it here, just in case you didn't get a chance to read it in the Times . Hymn for the Hurting by Amanda Gorman Everything hurts, Our hearts shadowed and strange, Minds made muddied and mute. We carry tragedy, terrifying and true. And yet none of it is new; We knew it as home, As horror, As heritage. Even our children Cannot be children, Cannot be. Everything hurts. It’s a hard time to be alive, And even harder to stay that way. We’re burdened to live out these days, While at the same time, blessed to outlive them. This alarm is how we know We must be altered — That we must differ or die, That we must triumph or try. ...

The Nature of Things

Search This Blog