Colson Whitehead - Harlemi kavarás

Colson Whitehead's new novel, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and National Book Award winner, takes place in New York in the 1960s.

Ray Carney is known throughout the neighborhood in Harlem, selling affordable furniture in his store on 125th Street, which is how he supports his family. His wife, Elizabeth, is pregnant with a second child. Their home isn't big - Elizabeth's wealthy parents weren't happy about the marriage, they don't like Ray - but it's still home.

Few people know about Carney, that behind the surface of an honest lifestyle, he has a few tricks up his sleeve. He keeps in touch with dubious figures. And the stickers are getting tighter and tighter.

Freddie, his cousin Carney, a small-time salesman, helps him pass this and that. Freddie joins a gang that plans to rob the Hotel Theresa, a historic hotel in Harlem, and he needs Ray for the operation. As usual, nothing goes as Freddie planned, and Ray stumbles further and further into trouble. It's not just his reputation that's at stake anymore - the fair is at stake.

A crime novel? Morality? A social novel? Black and white side by side in this retro gem, which ends up being nothing more than a touching love letter to old Harlem.

Colson Whitehead's novels at the 21st Century Publishing House:
The Underground Railroad (2017), The Nickel Boys (2019)