Aug 9th 2022

Colson Whitehead will discuss his book Harlem Shuffle. He will be joined in conversation by Adam Serwer.

Presented in Partnership with Books & Books, Miami Book Fair, and other independent bookstores

Virtual Event. Register HERE

About the book: “Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked…” To his customers and neighbors on 125th Street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver’s Row don’t approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it’s still home. Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occassionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn’t ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn’t ask questions, either. Harlem Shuffle‘s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It’s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem. But mostly, it’s a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.

About the author: Colson Whitehead is the #1 New York Times Bestselling author of ten works of fiction and nonfiction, and is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction for The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad, which also won a National Book Award. A recipient of MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships, he lives in New York City.

About the interlocutor: Adam Serwer is a staff writer for the ideas section of The Atlantic and the author of the New York Times bestselling essay collection The Cruelty Is the Point. He was previously the national editor at Buzzfeed News, a national reporter for MSNBC, and a reporter for Mother Jones. He is the recipient of the 2019 Hillman Prize for commentary and analysis, the 2015 Sigma Delta Chi Award for online column writing, the 2020 Vernon Jarrett Medal, and the 2019 Association of Black Journalists Salute to Excellence Award for magazine commentary.

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