Book review: Harlem Shuffle has it all from race riots to gangsters

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

Harlem Shuffle – Colson Whitehead (Little, Brown - $37.99)

Reviewed by Louise Ward, Wardini Books

'Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked ...'

This sums up our hero, whose view of himself is slightly at odds with his actions.

Ray owns a furniture store in 1960s Harlem. The son of a career criminal, Ray has dabbled, occasionally fencing a 'gently used' product, but sees himself as an upright member of his community.

His cousin Freddie is wilder, bouncing charismatically from place to place, worrying his mother and his cousin. Freddie gets in deep with the new gang in town and ill-advisedly suggests that Ray could fence some incredibly hot proceeds from a planned hotel heist. Ray doesn't have much say in the matter; he's in up to his neck.

Ray's Harlem is packed full of colourful characters. He deals with those who will deal with him; many white businessmen won't have a bar of him.

He drinks his coffee at the same diner every day and gazes out at the famous Hotel Theresa, where Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong stayed when performing, some hotels in other boroughs of the city not willing to offer hospitality to Black performers.

Race riots break out when an unarmed Black boy is shot by a white police officer — Whitehead gently explores 'progress' on race-related matters, making observations through Ray, letting the reader come to their own conclusions.

Freddie is the character who pushes the plot along – his bond with Ray means they both bear the brunt of his terrible decisions. Ray treads a line between two worlds — that of his life with his respectable wife and their children and that of his past in which he can harness the power of his underworld connections when he needs to.

This is so much fun. Mortal peril, race riots, seriously nasty criminals, the hot and sweaty streets of Harlem in the 1960s and a furniture salesman who has a hell of a lot going on.

Colson Whitehead puts so many beautiful thoughts on each page of his gentle, considered prose and brings New York and its people to glorious life.

It's a measured, calm narration of a life and a family, but with gangsters. A great read.