Harlem Shuffle was billed as a heist book, a caper. And it certainly has heists, and even a caper or two, but reducing the whole book to that label ignores that Harlem Shuffle is something a bit more complex. Ray Carney is a furniture salesman in Harlem in the late 1950s. He is moderately successful, still worried about making rent. He dreams of a bigger apartment for his growing family. He is also, we soon learn, not entirely on the up-and-up. In a description reminiscent […]
Do we judge a man by the weight of the envelope-or whom he gives it to?
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead
