Colson Whitehead is “simply incapable of writing a bad book”, said Ian Williams in The Guardian. Over 20 years, he has delivered both page-turners and weighty literary blockbusters – the two most recent of which, The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, were awarded Pulitzer Prizes for interrogating the US’s racist past.
Whitehead’s new novel, Harlem Shuffle, sees him revert to a lighter style, said Johanna Thomas-Corr in The Sunday Times. A “pulpy neo-noir” set in the 1960s, it centres on Ray Carney, an ambitious furniture salesman who gets sucked into various criminal schemes. “It’s a red-blooded book full of powerful personalities”, which brings mid-century New York memorably to life.
I was less impressed, said Clive Davis in The Times. Billed as a “family saga masquerading as a crime novel”, Harlem Shuffle consists of “mundane slabs of prose that wander nowhere in particular”.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Whitehead is a veritable literary celebrity, the subject of many fawning magazine profiles – but on the evidence of this feeble effort, it’s hard to see what the fuss is about.
Fleet 336pp £16.99; The Week Bookshop £13.99
The Week Bookshop
To order this title or any other book in print, visit theweekbookshop.co.uk, or speak to a bookseller on 020-3176 3835. Opening times: Monday to Saturday 9am-5.30pm and Sunday 10am-4pm.
-
Roasted squash and apple soup recipeThe Week Recommends Autumnal soup is full of warming and hearty flavours
-
Ukraine: Donald Trump pivots againIn the Spotlight US president apparently warned Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accept Vladimir Putin’s terms or face destruction during fractious face-to-face
-
Autumn Budget: will Rachel Reeves raid the rich?Talking Point To fill Britain’s financial black hole, the Chancellor will have to consider everything – except an income tax rise
-
Roasted squash and apple soup recipe
The Week Recommends Autumnal soup is full of warming and hearty flavours
-
6 well-crafted log homesFeature Featuring a floor-to-ceiling rock fireplace in Montana and a Tulikivi stove in New York
-
Film reviews: A House of Dynamite, After the Hunt, and It Was Just an AccidentFeature A nuclear missile bears down on a U.S. city, a sexual misconduct allegation rocks an elite university campus, and a victim of government terror pursues vengeance
-
Book reviews: ‘Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife’ and ‘Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong With Baseball and How to Fix It’Feature Gertrude Stein’s untold story and Jane Leavy’s playbook on how to save baseball
-
Rachel Ruysch: Nature Into ArtFeature Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, through Dec. 7
-
Music reviews: Olivia Dean, Madi Diaz, and Hannah FrancesFeature “The Art of Loving,” “Fatal Optimist,” and “Nested in Tangles”
-
Gilbert King’s 6 favorite books about the search for justiceFeature The journalist recommends works by Bryan Stevenson, David Grann, and more
-
Ready for the apocalypseFeature As anxiety rises about the state of the world, the ranks of preppers are growing—and changing.
