Crook Manifesto

Pulitzer Prize-winner Whitehead’s second Ray Carney book begins in the 1970s, when Ray’s Harlem furniture shop is firmly established. But, given the chaos that it engendered in Harlem Shuffle, his stolen-goods—sorry, “previously owned merchandise”—sideline is no longer. Readers of the previous book will find the setup turned inside out: instead of conquering Harlem, Ray has been ground down by it. He now sits precariously atop his small empire, the relentless engine that is the city seeming to churn the ground beneath his feet. Also different: this time Ray endures the relentlessness of several decades of upheaval compared to the relatively short and, in retrospect, gentle, time when he was a striving young man in the ‘60s. The neighborhood doesn’t want to let him retire his fenced-goods work and the Black Panthers and Black Liberation Army are competing for dominance, a fight Ray wants to sidestep. A crackdown on police corruption sees him dragged into worse and worse actions as his former associates get desperate. Ray’s troubles and determination mirror the fighting spirit of his neighborhood; his saga is New York City’s, with the shocking and sad tale displaying moments of hilarity alongside heartbreaking lows. Whitehead’s writing is fantastically evocative as usual, and his rebuilding of recent decades of New York City life, and of the unforgettable Ray Carney, is a treat to read.