When I saw Colson Whitehead's newest book on NetGalley, I knew I couldn't pass it up. Like many of the other books I've read by Whitehead, Harlem Shuffle is about so much more than the base story line. I really loved the struggle Ray Carney goes through as he tries to balance his earnest business attempts with his history of less-than-legal dealings. Whitehead did a great job of placing Carney and this struggle against the backdrop of the racial and class issues of the 1960s, and so much is applicable in our current struggles with these issues today.

I really enjoyed this book. It's a crime novel in three parts detailing six years in the life of Raymond Carney, a furniture dealer who also knows how to move stolen goods. Carney is a complex man and makes for a fascinating protagonist. I found myself very much wanting Carney to get through the book without anything horrible happening to him.

Of the three stories I found the middle story- a revenge caper- the most interesting, but all three plots were well thought out and kept my interest. The characters were all interesting- especially Carney and Pepper. I would read a book focusing on Pepper and his life.

The real star in this book is the writing. Whitehead knows how to tell a story. And he knows when to throw in detail and when to let the reader use their imagination. He can build a world through the characters' interaction with the world.

Whitehead also knows how to draw parallels. The last story in the book takes place immediately after the Harlem riot of 1964. The riot, sparked by the murder of 15 year old James Powell by a police office, obviously resonates strongly to events of the last year. Whitehead's characters react to the events they're living through in an honest and understated way.

There are many themes running through the book: generational differences, activism, the movement of the grift economy, systemic racism...the lsit goes on and on, and these themes inform the stories and the characters without ever once derailing the reading experience.

All in all, this was a great book! I highly recommend it!

Man, it's hard not to gush about Harlem Shuffle. I read a ton of novels every year and every once in a while I pick one up and quickly realize that I had gotten used to mediocrity and this was what a truly great novel was supposed to be like. The author meanders his way through a story filled with memorable, complex characters that leap from the page as they engage in heists, jobs, riots, business, family dinners, and revenge. I had a hard time putting this book down and was sad when it ended as I wanted to keep reading about these people. This would not have worked in the hands of a less talented writer. Fortunately, this author perfectly executes this "shuffle" and has provided us with a valuable portrait of race in Harlem and a truly memorable read.

With one sentence, Colson Whitehead tells us everything we need to know about Ray Carney, the main character and yet leaves the reader wanting so much more. "Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked..." Harlem Shuffle is a story about heists, family, identity, survival and so much more. With colorful, well-drawn characters, Whitehead brings the reader to late 1950s and early 1960s Harlem. One of my favorite aspects of this novel was the author's use of place as another character. Another hit from Colson Whitehead!

Thank you NetGalley and Doubleday Books for this ARC. Interspersed with some great crime writing was some wonderful world-building and character-driven vignettes. Whitehead smoothly transitioned from one to the others, linking it all into a great story about a man who is a little bit straight and a little bit crooked. It was a fascinating foray into the Harlem underworld of the early 1960s. I will definitely recommend this to patrons looking for a caper novel that also examines deeper issues of racism, race, and family relations.

Entertaining caper by one of the greatest living writers. A less intense, but just as enthralling follow-up to The Nickel Boys.

I am not a connoisseur of the hustler heist genre, generally saving that more for film viewing than reading. The last one I remember really enjoying was Michael Crichton’s “Great Train Robbery” which combined great historical fiction with a real-life heist for the ages.

But I am a huge fan of the genius that is Colson Whitehead. I have read and adored most everything that he has written. When I heard that he will be publishing “Harlem Shuffle”, I could hardly wait. It sure doesn’t disappoint.

Much of the buzz will be around what a departure this is for Whitehead. That is true on the surface. But “Harlem Shuffle” is clearly yet another seminal work combining a truer than life tale weaving historical facts with powerful instances of systemic racism, injustice, and inequality.

Whitehead just can’t seem to write a bad sentence, line of dialogue, or paragraph of authentic background. He meticulously recreates the Harlem of the 1960’s replete with dive bars, clubs, street scenes, strivers, addicts, hustlers, cops, Trust-fund heirs, killings, and demonstrations. It’s a story of yet another chapter of the American Dream eluding Black Americans, forcing good people to do bad things in order to get ahead. Not a moment goes by when a sliver of history isn’t stuffed into a slice of life.

Ray Carney is a good guy who has had a rough ride, He’s smart, caring, and never gives up. He “married above his station”, and is driven to show everyone that he has what it takes. But you can’t just play it straight in ‘60’s Harlem; opportunities to break out are ever enticing and mortally dangerous. Carney is reluctantly drawn in initially as a go-between and fence when all he wants to do is build a foundation for his family. One thing leads to another. Naturally there is a large cast of characters, not always easy to keep track of, but all logical parts of a crazy patchwork puzzle. The more we hear, the more we fear. We’re rooting for Carney and screaming to him to just look out.

As ever reading Colson Whitehead I come out a more informed, humble, and passionate reader, person, and citizen of this deeply flawed country and culture that we are either forced or choose to call home.
Thank you to Doubleday Books and NetGalley for the dARC.

Ray Carney lives in between worlds: the legitimate world of his furniture business and the crooked world of his family, the prickly, pretentious world of his in-laws and the bustling world of the Harlem streets, and the violently overlapping worlds of white violence and Black resistance. Whitehead renders 1960s Harlem in precise, vivid detail, with layers of connections and grudges and favors layered uneasily on top of one another. Carney himself admits to knowing only one small part of the place where he lives and works: one tour with a consummate criminal shows him "places [he] had never seen before...suddenly rendered visible, like caves uncovered by low tide," another with a crooked white cop reveals "different entrances into one vast, secret city. Ever close, adjacent to all you know, just underneath. If you knew where to look."

I was most drawn to Harlem Shuffle in these moments of juxtaposition, where the characters' different values and perspectives struck and sparked. Carney is a compelling protagonist, and his individual efforts to protect his family and prove his worth illuminate larger questions about race, propriety, and opportunity that add texture to the novel, set during the burgeoning Civil Rights Movement. Though the description of Harlem Shuffle led me to expect something like Ocean's Eleven, with the action spiraling around one grand heist, the book felt more like a family drama than a crime novel; Carney's relationships with his wayward cousin Freddie and his disdainful father-in-law Leland provide much of the conflict.

Fans of Whitehead's previous novels may be surprised by Harlem Shuffle: the setting feels more sprawling even as the story itself is more personal, and the novel never quite reaches the heights of emotional clarity and epic storytelling that define The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad. It took me a while to really commit to the plot, but Whitehead's writing is always excellent, and by the end I was hooked.

Thanks to Doubleday and NetGalley for the ARC!

Ray Carney is doing his best to thrive and survive. As a black entrepreneur operating in the heart of Harlem during the period just before the passage of the Civil Rights Act, he is trying to build a legitimate business selling furniture while generating some additional cash flow by fencing stolen goods. As the son of a well-known crook, Carney is well versed in the local criminal community, but still tries his best to stay above the fray in order to support his wife and two children. However, when his cousin Freddie—with whom Ray was raised for long stretches of his youth—drags him into a few complicated (and poorly conceived) thefts, Ray’s future is put at considerable risk. How he manages to walk the fine line between remaining loyal to a family member while staying alive and out of jail creates the dramatic tension in the story.

Harlem Shuffle chronicles about a half dozen years of Ray’s tale, along with a substantial amount of the backstory on his upbringing for context. Split into three connected parts starting in 1959, the novel provides a chronological series of snapshots that add up to a compelling portrait of the main character. That is an important point to make because while the book is nominally billed as a crime story, the actual capers described are the least interesting thing about it. In fact, where Colson Whitehead’s prose really shines is in the meticulous way he recreates a sense of the time and the place during an era when things were changing so rapidly. This is impressive historical fiction that builds a world filled racial tension, shady business dealings, corrupt police, rampant drug use, as well as loyal friends, hard-working folks trying to climb the ladder, and a lot of people with solid family values.

I did enjoy this book, but it seems like one that I should have loved. The story itself starts off very slowly and only builds to a page-turning crescendo right near the end, perhaps due to the careful way in which the author chose to create Ray’s character. However, that focus came at the expense of developing the rest of the supporting cast, most of whom were neither fully formed nor particularly engaging (Ray’s crime associate Pepper being a notable exception). Also, it is difficult not to compare this novel to James McBride’s Deacon King Kong, which covers similar ground in terms of the social issues portrayed but does so in a far more joyful and entertaining fashion. So, Harlem Shuffle is a novel that I can easily recommend for what it does best, but it is one that falls a little short of the Whitehead’s own considerable catalog of past work.

Retro Harlem springs to vivid cinematographic life in this delicious romp. Family man Ray Carney is trying to be an upstanding citizen but his cousin Freddie and his gangster dealings won’t leave Carney alone. Generous helpings of heists and shady conmen make this a fun narrative even if sometimes there’s more flash than substance. Worth reading for Whitehead’s exquisitely crafted sentences alone: “You want to know what’s going on, you ask the block wino. They see everything and then the booze pickles it, keeps it all fresh for later.” Whiteheads fans will love it, newbies should read Underground Railroad first.

I’ve read several of his prior books and really enjoyed this. It is really 3 separate novellas in the life of Ray Carney, with the same essential characters but with different stages of his life, spanning the late 40s to the 60s.The central themes seem relevant even today-family, racism, police brutality, payoffs for protection etc but his inside look at Harlem in that era is simply masterful and well researched, and a joy to read. Having grown up in NYC, the geography was well known to me,and many of the events/ upheavals of the era familiar. Ray walks a fine line-legitimate furniture with an illegitimate side hustle in stolen merchandise, but this reader was pulling for him throughout.
You’ll have to read it for yourself to find out if he makes it.😂

Thank you to Doubleday and NetGalley for the Advanced Reader's Copy!

Available Sept 14 2021

"Harlem Shuffle", Colson Whitehead's seventh novel, focuses on the seedy underworld of 1940s to 1960s Harlem. It is a revel in Black entrepreneurship and Carney, son of notorious crook Big Mike, struggles to make a name for himself in the furniture world. Inevitably, Carney's past catches up to him as his cousin Freddie drags him into one caper and then another. Bound by a sense of family loyalty, Carney struggles to protect his cousin, his own family and his business.

What really draws me into this novel is the way Whitehead immerses his audience into the era he choses. I truly felt like I was in Black Harlem, surrounded by the sights and sounds of the era, from the decline of radio to the rise in space tech. It's a fun historical drama which also tackles some pretty serious issues of race relations, families and morality. A thoroughly enjoyable read!

Ray Carney describes himself as an entrepreneur, after graduating from college and purchasing a furniture store on 125th St. In Harlem. However, his father was a criminal respected in his circle and Ray still has ties to the criminal community, especially when he becomes involved with his cousin Freddie's criminal activities. As Ray struggles to provide for his family, he takes on some side jobs with Freddie and finds that decisions become much more difficult when he feels he must protect not only his wife and children but also Freddie from some catastrophic consequences.
Whitehead portrays a Harlem of the 1960s as a place with racial tension and a place where businesses must pay tribute to various gangsters in order to survive. But, as Carney finds, the most dangerous and nefarious, criminals do not live in Harlem and are disguised as upstanding citizens.
Whitehead gives the reader a story of love, of family obligations, of revenge and retribution.
This book is recommended for readers interested in Harlem history and the connections between Harlem and the rest of New York.

Look the book is really good! Covering three vignettes over a five to seven year period, the book is about changing Harlem, Black struggles with police, crooked real estate corporations, the main characters’- Carney and his cousin Freddie -evolving, earnest, and embittered relationship with each other, and ancillary crimes and heists of them as they strain and struggle to stay ahead of the curve. It isn’t about any one theft or caper, but the arc of those ancillary crimes committed by the leads as part and parcel of their general lives. The closest the book gets to being wholly consumed by a shady operation is in the second vignette, when Carney is bilked by Duke, a local scammer, for $500, and commits himself and all his resources to revenge. Harlem Shuffle is out of the league of a mystery, thriller, or suspense novel, and though it should be considered for a general fiction award, it doesn’t fit here.