To Harlem residents, Ray Carney seems to be an upstanding furniture owner and salesman. He aspires to sell reasonably priced items to furnish people’s houses and apartments and live a middle-class life by providing for his family. However, he descends from a family involved in crime, and he’s never fully escaped those roots. To those crooks who know his dark side, he represents an opportunity.
His cousins and connections allow him to live a double life, hidden even from his wife. He has all the means and economic privileges of an upstanding life, but he can’t shake the need to “shuffle” stolen merchandise from the streets into customer’s hands. Eventually, these propensities spiral out of his control, to the detriment of his personal business, his crime-ridden family, and his individual integrity. Will he survive? Only those who finish the book will find out for sure.
Author Colson Whitehead guides us through through the dark side of our personal journeys and the compromises we make to survive in life. He does so in a crime story that accelerates as the pages turn. In the meantime, he teaches us about race and power and the inevitable double standards of modern life. This page-turner is well worth reading to pass the time while educating one’s self on reality’s hidden underside.
Harlem Shuffle: A Novel
By Colson Whitehead
Copyright (c) 2021
Vintage Books
ISBN13 9780525567271
Page Count: 320
Genre: Fiction
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