Harlem Shuffle

The moving novel by the two-time Pulitzer Prize winner

In the vibrant Harlem of the 1960s, where gangsters and pimps, con artists and gunmen pull the strings, a man from humble beginnings tries to rise as honestly as possible.

Ray Carney would actually prefer to get by without any deceit. However, when his wife is expecting their second child, the income from his furniture store on 125th Street is not enough to meet the standards his in-laws expect. Cousin Freddie occasionally brings over a gold chain that Ray pawns at a jeweler in Times Square. But what to do with the stolen goods from the heist at the legendary Hotel Theresa in the heart of Harlem, after Freddie and his buddies have vanished? When police and gangsters pay Ray a visit at his store, his daring double life, teetering between righteousness and deceit, origin and ambition, hangs in the balance.

Colson Whitehead's literary masterpiece is a family saga, a sociography, and a crime story, but above all, it is a love letter to New York's most famous neighborhood - authentically narrated by Richard Barenberg.