Harlem Shuffle is a novel by American author and Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead. Set in New York in the years 1959, 1961, and 1964, the novel depicts the life of a small-business owner who gets embroiled in criminal activities.
Ray Carney is a furniture salesman living in the neighborhood of Harlem in Manhattan. His family has been part of New York's criminal underworld for years; his father, Big Mike, is a renowned thief and his cousin Freddie does various small-time jobs. Ray sells some of Freddie's stolen goods on the black market but ultimately hopes to leave criminal activity behind. Freddie decides to rob a prominent hotel and in doing so draws a great deal of attention to himself and Ray. Ray helps Freddie out of his difficult situation and in doing so is drawn back into a life of crime. The novel follows the ups and downs of Ray's life over a five-year span. He gains prominence in the community, as both his regular business and more "crooked" enterprises pay dividends. Towards the end of the book, Freddie gets mixed up in another robbery gone wrong and Ray is unable to save him from the consequences. Ray feels continually torn about his double life, as he is a capable and smart criminal but yearns to have a simpler, "straight" life. The novel depicts various moments and places of significance in Harlem, including the Hotel Theresa and the 1964 race riots. The book captures Ray's struggle to protect his family while managing the power dynamics of race and class in New York's social scene.
Published in 2021 by Doubleday, the novel was nominated for the 2021 Kirkus Prize For Fiction and the National Book Critics' Circle Award. It was praised for its depiction of Harlem's history, as well as its use of mood and atmosphere. In a review for NPR, author Denny S. Bryce writes, "A heist with a cast of zany characters, tongue-in-cheek dialogue, questionable criminal skills, and of course, a bumbling, incompetent thief or two are undoubtedly part of the charm of Colson Whitehead's Harlem Shuffle. But the novel is also a powerful tale of a man's love for his family and the neighborhood where he lives. And the man at the center of that tale is a devastatingly enjoyable character who has a true gift for words — if not always the smartest actions."
