NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground
Railroad and The Nickel Boys this gloriously entertaining novel is fast-paced keen-eyed and
very funny ... about race power and the history of Harlem all disguised as a thrill-ride crime
novel (San Francisco Chronicle).Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being
crooked... To his customers and neighbors on 125th street Carney is an upstanding salesman of
reasonably priced furniture making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife
Elizabeth are expecting their second child and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve
of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks it's still home. Few people
know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks and that his façade of normalcy has
more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time. Cash is tight
especially with all those installment-plan sofas so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops
off the odd ring or necklace Ray doesn't ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler
downtown who doesn't ask questions either. Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob
the Hotel Theresa—the Waldorf of Harlem—and volunteers Ray's services as the fence. The heist
doesn't go as planned they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele one made up of shady cops
vicious local gangsters two-bit pornographers and other assorted Harlem lowlifes. Thus begins
the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double
life he begins to see who actually pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed
save his cousin and grab his share of the big score all while maintaining his reputation as
the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs? Harlem Shuffle's ingenious story
plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It's a family saga
masquerading as a crime novel a hilarious morality play a social novel about race and power
and ultimately a love letter to Harlem. But mostly it's a joy to read another dazzling novel
from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.Look for Colson
Whitehead’s new novel Crook Manifesto coming soon!
