Unfortunately, this book wasn't for me. My main problem was that I wanted this to be like The Nickel Boys, and it is not. However, this book showcases Colson Whitehead's true talent and versatility as a writer, and I still consider myself a Whitehead fan. I look forward to his next book!

To be the first book I read from Whiteheads this was awesome. I might reread again. Sadly due to time I will not be sending in review until next year

“A gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.”

Based on the synopsis of the book I expected there to be more heists than actually took place so I was a little disappointed there. The book also moved a little slow for me and between that and all the different characters that you have to follow I often got a little lost. I also can’t really stand reading about characters that are just so blindly loyal to someone in the way that Carney is with Freddie. It didn’t seem believable to me. Maybe I was just looking for more crime drama and less family drama.

Whitehead does an excellent job of setting the scene and really putting the reader in the Harlem atmosphere of the 60s and he’s clearly a talented writer, this just wasn’t one that I enjoyed very much.

eARC provided by NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

This was my first colson whitehead book and it was great! I believe it was historically accurate with a lot of things but it was also entertaining. I did have to get through it sometimes but overall, I enjoyed it.

Ray Carney, a slightly “bent”, but admirable black man living in Harlem in the early 1960s, is constantly on the move trying to better his life. The income from his legit business, a furniture store, is often barely enough, so it’s supplemented by various other, less legitimate endeavors. Along with a host of unusual characters, he participates in a number of crazy criminal schemes, endangering all he’s worked for. Ray is a man you can’t help but root for. He is so earnest, cares so much for his loved ones, and tries so hard to do the right thing, you can’t help admiring him and worrying that one of these misadventures will tear his hard won life down.
Whitehead paints a beautiful portrait of Harlem in the 1960s. Using his astonishing writing skills, he transports the reader to a place hard to imagine, both wonderful and terrible at times, but always fascinating. Ray’s struggle to survive there shows how rigged the system is against people like him. He faces rampant racism, as well as discrimination based on his social status and family background. On top of that, corruption permeates the society, and he is constantly having to pay various officials and crooks for protection or favors.

I enjoyed reading this, but, in my humble opinion, it would have been a much better book with less extraneous information. Most of it was fascinating, but it was excessive. This is the only reason I give it 4 stars.

Colson Whitehead never writes the same book twice. He jumps genres and styles with every new release. From the post-apocalyptic Zone One to the magical realism of Underground Railroad to historical fiction of The Nickel Boys to a nonfiction book where he enters the World Series of Poker in Las Vegas with $10,000 (The Noble Hustle). There is no predicting what he will write next. The only constant is his work. Everything he does, Colson Whitehead does well.

Whitehead’s latest book, Harlem Shuffle, brings him into the realm of crime fiction. This is structured like a triptych, three sections, each section almost the same length, each section two to three years apart, but each section tied to the one before. The main character, Ray Carney, runs a furniture store on 125th Street in Harlem. He has a family that is growing, an apartment that is too small, and people who always sell him used TVs and jewelry and other property that might not have belonged to them very long before entering the store. This gives Carney a reputation as someone who will move stolen goods, even though he pretends to be on the straight and narrow. In the first section, Carney’s cousin is part of a heist and comes to him to help them move some of the jewels they steal. This job does not happen without hiccups to their plans, and before he knows it, Carney is much more involved than he ever wanted to be.

The second and third sections are not related to the first section, but they continue the life of Carney and his business, which becomes more and more lucrative but shady with the passing years. Carney becomes well known as someone who moves stolen merchandise. This means he gets more business, can expand his furniture store, get rid of all of the used furniture and only sell new, while paying off the police and buying a new apartment for his expanding family. He becomes a successful businessman, but in the second and third sections, there is proof that he is only one step away from crime and the criminal element.

Many of the most famous triptychs in art have a religious theme. In Harlem Shuffle, Whitehead writes about Harlem in a way that almost feels religious, like he has chosen holy ground for the setting of his novel. He writes about the way the neighborhood changes in the years between the three sections, but even with the changes, reverence still exists. Whitehead shows us that the spirit of Harlem will always be the same, with some honest people doing honest work, but many people doing whatever they can to get by.

In each section, not only does he revisit different buildings, streets, and businesses and how they have changed, but he also does the same with neighborhood characters. We are updated with many different stages in people’s lives. The strongest example of this is the character Pepper. Pepper is someone who Carney calls whenever he has some work that needs done that might be slightly against the law. Pepper is loyal, reliable, and always willing to help Carney, usually paid in pieces of new furniture. He feels like more of a staple to the neighborhood than a side character, someone that is Harlem, someone that knows everything about the neighborhood. Pepper feels like the evangelist, always telling Carney the News, whether Good or Bad. Harlem Shuffle does not have any religious overtones, but it does feel like the Harlem in Harlem Shuffle, with all of it’s faults, deserves our respect and reverence.

Harlem Shuffle is literary pulp fiction. There is not a great amount of mystery, but the tension is high, the characters are all crooked, and even though Carney is a great character, he also brokers stolen merchandise, pays off cops and gang leaders, and keeps it all from his family. Colson Whitehead still writes in his literary but very readable style. Since the book is broken into three sections, it is very easy to get swept into the story and read the entire section in one sitting. Colson Whitehead is a true American Master, and his novels deserve all of the praise they receive. Harlem Shuffle is just another achievement in an already award-winning career. But if you don’t like this book, try his next. It will be completely different.

I received this as an ARC from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Whitehead places you in Harlem in the late 50s early 60s with a businessman who tries to convince himself and others that he isn't as shady as he appears. Following protagonist Carney through the turbulent years of this story, getting to know all the colorful characters he encounters on the way and wandering by his side through the vibrant streets of 1960s Harlem was an interesting way to introduce characters and plot. This is a total switch-up from Whitehead’s previous two acclaimed novels. The story of a furniture store owner in Harlem in the 1950s and 60s who walks the fine line between legit businessman and small-time (encroaching on big-time) criminal. Ray Carney and Harlem in the years 1959, 1961 and 1964. Ray Carney works as a furniture salesman who occasionally receives stolen goods through his furniture store, also helping out his cousin Freddie, a Harlem underworld criminal. Through Freddie, Ray finds himself getting involved in criminal activities. Ray’s father was a full time criminal underworld figure and Ray is trying not to follow in his father’s footsteps. This book is different from the previous book I have read by Whitehead and although the writing can be engaging at times the story and overall pace of the book really fell flat, I was disappointed in the overall book. Although this book is not for me I believe others may find it engaging and enjoyable.
Thank you to NetGalley, Colson Whitehead, and Doubleday Books for the ARC.

Morally gray characters are a special breed of protagonists (or antagonists). Their actions are one thing, but the reasons creators give for those actions are often far more interesting. In the case of Harlem Shuffle, Colson Whitehead keeps his main character's reasons simple: money, and a racist social system set up against him. As easy as it is to define why Raymond Carney does what Raymond Carney does, it never feels obvious and I hadn't the faintest idea of how the book would end until the very last page.

Raymond—or "Ray," but mostly just "Carney"—is a young entrepreneur trying desperately to escape the cloud of his father's lengthy criminal career. He's got a good start to it, running a used and new furniture store on the up and up. New businesses take time to really be profitable, which his in-laws don't seem to understand, and things are a little extra rough when we meet Carney because he's got a whole lot of nice radio sets to sell when all his customers seem to be more interested in televisions. Still, he believes in his little store.

Then, his cousin Freddie shows up asking for a favor—rather, telling Carney he's volunteered him for a job. Freddie helps supply Carney with some of his merchandise (whose owners may or may not have consented to it being resold) and they're close like brothers, not to mention Freddie's already told all other involved parties that Carney's in on the gig, so Carney reluctantly agrees. The job turns out to be a heist of safes in a swanky hotel geared toward well-to-do Black people. Carney's role is to fence the stolen jewels. But the crew pulling the heist is not the only one in town and soon Carney is neck-deep in the same world he's more or less tried to remove himself from.

That's part one. Harlem Shake is a novel in three parts that all take place within about five years. During that time, Carney performs a delicate dance in and out of crime. At turns, he is a reluctant patsy, a man with a vendetta and connections to unsavory characters, and resigned to his mostly unwanted place on the fringe between legitimacy and criminality. But he is also shown to try—really try—to play it straight, but the world he inhabits won't let him. His in-laws make their expectations for their daughter and grandchildren clear and Carney can't provide that without the little extra he has coming in on the side. He tries to invest in his future but the upper-crust people he thought he could trust prove themselves to be worse than the crooks he's trying to distance himself from. And no matter where he goes or what he does, his race makes him a certain kind of invisible that no amount of legitimacy can remove.

Carney's story is one quite foreign to my own experience. I'm a white woman, for one thing, and I'm writing this about fifty years removed from the events in Harlem Shuffle. I have little lived experience that mirrors the events here, though Whitehead's writing is rich enough that that's not a huge deal. But it seems like just as glaring is my lack of familiarity with Harlem and the broader New York City area. (I assume it's hardly anything like the aggregate of Law & Order: SVU, Gossip Girl, and The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt has taught me.) I live in a city but not THE city; the Big Apple's still on my wanderlust list, and with how this pandemic's going maybe it'll be safe to travel again sometime in the mid-2030s. Several jokes and references felt as though they would be more meaningful if I had the background to catch them rather than just watching them sail over my head—though to be fair, none were necessary to understand the main plot.

Whitehead deserves every honor thrown his way, and the acclaim he's gotten for Harlem Shuffle is no exception. I first encountered his work in his stunning zombie novel, Zone One, and have yet to be disappointed. His voice is so rich a soft, like a story whispered not to you but within earshot. That same voice drives the story in Harlem Shuffle; it also runs so insistently through the plot that you must pay attention or you will miss something vital, which I did a few times and had to go back and read more carefully. Whitehead also has little patience for reminding readers about this character or that, and I found after I put the book down for a couple of weeks when real life got hectic that when I picked it up again, I had trouble remembering some of the nuance of the story. Obviously, this isn't a criticism, but I would advise reading Harlem Shuffle when you can read it all. But do read it when it comes out next month (in bookstores everywhere Sept. 14!)—every last morally gray choice deserves your due consideration.

Posted on Ring Reads August 31, but I neglected to post until my year-end cleanup. Apologies.

Ray Carney is an upstanding citizen. He comes from a family of criminals, but he’s put himself on the street Enero. He runs a furniture store in Harlem and makes an honest living, although at his cousin Freddie’s insistence, he sometimes sells stolen goods through his furniture store as well. He’s a good, compassionate man - he too often sees family struggling and ends up offering installment plans. With a second child on the way, Ray is in some financial straits. Freddie is in on the seedier side of Harlem, and after a heist of a prominent Black hotel goes wrong, Freddie tugs Ray deeper and deeper into the dark side, sending all of his criminal contacts to fence goods through Ray.

I am so bummed to say that I didn’t love this book the way I thought I would. Colson Whitehead’s writing is unmatched - there’s no doubt about that. His prose is powerful, and the way he develops complex characters into good, bad, struggling, successful, empathetic, selfish - all of the contradictions - is such a close mirror to how humans actually ARE in real life. Ray is an intensely complicated character, and through the saga of his family and his (perhaps?) decline, you see him in every light possible.

But what was lacking for me in this book was the plot. It’s by no means necessary to have a strong plot moving the narrative forward (I admit I do like it when there is, though), but for a book that could be something like Fargo, with fencing and criminal activities and a HEIST, there was really very little excitement or intrigue in the plot itself.

I still enjoyed this book, what felt like a character study to me, but just wish there was a little more in terms of plot. Thank you to Doubleday for the ARC via Netgalley!

Harlem is fading. The crime isn’t as criminal as it should be. As it was. Soon much of it would be razed by progress. Ray Carney has a furniture store that is a legit success. But there is a dark underside. He fences stolen goods for his beloved cousin, Freddie. The same, “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble,” Freddie of their shared childhood. Colson Whitehead’s writing is so good. I wanted Carney to win and Freddie to get away. #HarlemShuffle # ColdonWhitehead
Thanks to #netgalley for an advanced copy of this good read.

Is this a series? Can this be a series?- These were the thoughts I had as I finished this book. It was everything I want from a noir-tinged heist book, and more. The setting of Harlem, NYC over the span of three sections from 1959 to 1964 comes alive in this book. Ray Carney is a clever family man who is pulled into a situation he wanted no part of by a cousin, but it takes him down a path of deeper side hustles, and darker connections. But he is a man who learns, grows, and is nothing if not enterprising.

What Whitehead does so well is to plant seeds so effortlessly that you don't immediately see the connections of this earlier NYC with the current state of the world. But as the story unfurls more, it becomes that much more clear that our past continues to inform and shape our present.

I thoroughly enjoyed the character evolution, the community of characters he interacts with, and the sharp dialogue. It was deeper and more engaging than I even expected, though I should have had high expectations given the fact that it's a Colson Whitehead book. And I really hope he revisits this setting and character in the future.

I would like to thank Doubleday for access to the digital advanced readers copy in exchange for a fair review.

2.5 stars rounded up.

I just noticed that in two recent reviews I've used the word "off-putting" to describe why the books didn't rate more than 3 stars. I hate to be redundant, so I'm going to try not use that term any more.

This book was not "that term" but I am wondering why it took me so long to finish it and to stay engaged. The story was unique and written well, just nothing special. I liked the main character, Carney, but felt something missing in conveying why he straddled the line between respectable businessman and sometime crook. I get that it was complicated. Just not very interesting. At times repetitive; other times meandering. I skimmed those parts.

My expectations may have been too high from this Pulitzer winner.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my early copy.

I had high hopes for this Colson Whitehead novel. Harlem Shuffle is such a great title. Unfortunately, I didn’t enjoy the read and I about gave up on it many times. The story of the crooked men behind seemingly legit businesses in Harlem was disjointed and disappointing. I’m really glad so many love his stories. But I honestly just don’t. Thank you NetGalley for the advanced read and I’m sorry my thoughts weren’t more positive.

Wow. I had a totally different experience reading this than expected. Maybe I had too high of expectations due to the early reviews? Also, my lack of engagement has a lot ylto do with the subject. I just didn't fall in l9ve with the characters or the storyline.

I signed up to read an early release via Netgalley because Colsen is an amazing writer. I just thought it would be more historical fiction, less about robbery and hard times.

I really enjoyed this book. It’s not quite what I envisioned, but it did work on several levels. I think Whitehead does a good job of blending genres, although I’m not sure I would recommend this to someone who genuinely likes heist/action/thriller type novels. I don’t think there’s enough here to satisfy them. But as historical/literary fiction it’s good.

This was my first Whitehead nove and I’m eager to read his other award winning books.

I had to start this book twice and I’m still not sure that I enjoyed it. I can’t list anything I didn’t like, it just never grabbed my interest and kept it. It had bright spots that I enjoyed but overall it wasn’t for me.

A fun, twisty turning masterpiece from a wonderful, inventive writer. It makes you wonder what Colson Whitehead will do next! I turned the pages so quickly!

DNF HARLEM SHUFFLE - rating it at 5 stars as I didn't even start it, but simply do not have the time nor the energy to read it. May pick it up again at some point in the future.

I loved Harlem Shuffle. This book was excellent. It was very different from the other Colson Whitehead books I've read, and in some ways reminded me of Blacktop Wasteland and that style of book. Still, I loved the plot and found the book to be an excellent read.

Once again, Colson Whitehead has written a phenomenal book. The storytelling in this book is worth 5 stars by itself, but the story was woven together in such a way that really brought all the storylines together. While this is classified as a mystery, I didn't get much of a mystery vibe from this book. What I did get was a story about how your upbringing always plays a part in your choices. Even when you are doing your best to distance yourself from a less than ideal childhood and parents. It also shows how its difficult to overcome your socio-economic status, even with education and playing by the rules.