Leland, Elizabeth’s father, exhibits no respect for Carney’s furniture business. Elizabeth’s parents don’t hide their disappointment at the union. Unlike The Intuitionist’s dignified protagonist, Lila Mae, Harlem Shuffle centers a problematic male protagonist on the wrong side of the tracks.Īlthough Carney comes from a line of lawbreakers, he married into an affluent family. In this mixed-genre - family saga and crime - story, Whitehead moves stealthily beyond the detective story of his acclaimed 1999 novel The Intuitionist. With Harlem Shuffle, Whitehead depicts another American era, bringing 1960s Harlem back to life. One of his past novels, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Underground Railroad, confronts the vestiges of slavery and another, The Nickel Boys, tackles racism in the Jim Crow justice system. Whitehead’s Harlem Shuffle continues his success as one of the literary giants of our time. If Carney manages to stay alive, his double life may be discovered. With his wife Elizabeth, he has a second child on the way. Although Carney engages in criminal misdeeds, he’s a sympathetic character in part because he is a family man. After a crew of bandits raid the Hotel Theresa, Carney hopes his involvement does not lead to his own murder. With the help of his misfit cousin Freddie, Carney deals in stolen jewelry on the side. In Colson Whitehead’s latest novel, Harlem Shuffle, Ray Carney is a furniture salesman struggling to make ends meet.
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