Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

Source of book: Audiobook from the library

 

I have read (or listened to) two other books by Colson Whitehead, and all three of the ones I have experienced have been very different. Zone One was a literary take on the classic zombie apocalypse story, while The Underground Railroad imagined the figurative highway for the enslaved who emancipated themselves to travel to freedom as if it were a literal railway, and literally underground. 

 

And then there is Harlem Shuffle, which I guess is more or less historical fiction? Or perhaps a gangster novel? Whatever it is, it is definitely more lighthearted than either of the other books I have read. In fact, it is really quite funny in places, albeit in a somewhat cynical and dark way. 

 

The book is set in Harlem, New York City, in the early 1960s. It is divided into three episodes, which are connected by the characters, but separate in storyline. 

 

The protagonist is Ray Carney, a really excellently drawn character, who illustrates the nuance of survival as a black man on the borderline between legal and not exactly legal. Ray comes from a family of crooks - his dad was notorious (and respected) within the underworld up until his untimely demise. 

 

Ray really wants to go straight. He marries the daughter of a lawyer (to her family’s consternation), and uses his inheritance (from his dad’s crimes) to open a legitimate furniture store on 125th Street. 

 

But, keeping straight isn’t easy, or perhaps even possible. Ray doesn’t ask too many questions about those used radios and televisions brought to him by Cousin Freddy, and eventually ends up being a fence for coins and jewelry as well, in connection with a jeweler who also doesn’t ask questions. 

 

Don’t ask, don’t tell. 

 

But Cousin Freddy is a fuck-up, and can’t stay out of trouble. The kind of trouble that keeps dragging Ray into things he has no intention of being a part of. You know the kind. 

 

In the first episode, Freddy gets involved in a heist at the historic Hotel Theresa - notable for being one of the first desegregated hotels, starting in 1940 after it was bought by an African American businessman. Notable guests over the years include Fidel Castro, Duke Ellington, Buddy Holly, and Malcolm X. 

 

The story of the heist was based on an actual robbery, apparently. In the book, in the aftermath of the successful job, Miami Joe, the guy who put it together, double crosses the others - and starts murdering his accessories. Oh, and one of the items taken was a posh necklace that a local gangster gave to his mistress - and now he wants it back. 

 

In the second episode, Ray is invited to apply to be a member in the distinguished social and business club, the Dumas Club, of which his father-in-law is a member. One of the lead members, Wilfred Duke, a banker, solicits a payment of five hundred dollars as a, well, wink and nudge. 

 

Despite paying it, Ray is turned down for membership, and Duke refuses to return the bribe. Ray vows revenge. This episode is all about his carefully laid plans to bring Duke down - which he does. 

 

Unsurprisingly, it turns out Duke has embezzled a bunch of money from other members, including Ray’s father-in-law, who has to downsize substantially after losing most of his savings. 

 

The third episode involves Cousin Freddy again. This time, Freddy, who has had drug issues all his life, latches on to Linus van Wyke (a fictional trust-fund-baby sort descended from the first mayor of New York.) 

 

Linus has been in and out of psychiatric treatment in endless attempts by his family to “cure” his homosexuality. Combine that trauma with too much money, and it is unsurprising that Linus does prodigious quantities of drugs. 

 

During the Harlem Riot of 1964, he convinces Freddy to help him steal the family jewels - and some papers that are meaningful to Linus. Unfortunately, they are surprised in the act by Linus’ dad, and this brings down the entire power of the van Wyke family on the two of them. And then, when Linus overdoses and dies, well, who is in the way but Freddy…and Ray. 

 

This being a Colson Whitehead book, this is no boilerplate crime novel. Whitehead is an excellent writer, and a writer of literary fiction, even when he works within genres. (Zone One is a great example.) 

 

The story itself peels back the layers of corruption. As the book says, everyone has a hustle. Everyone is on the make, one way or another. 

 

If you think of the sections of the book as different views, it is apparent that we are zooming out. Miami Joe and his hotel heist is the small scale. Joe is a crook, but he isn’t at the level of organized crime. The Theresa is a job, not an operation, if you will. 

 

When we look at the Dumas club, the corruption goes up a level - to the professional middle class, which Ray aspires to join - it would be good for business. This part of the system is governed by what Ray calls “the movement of envelopes” - that is, the passing of bribes. 

 

Ray himself straddles the class and legality lines, so he needs to pass envelopes to two different corrupt entities. He needs to be in good with the local gang, so he pays off “Chink” Montegue, who lets him operate and even sends him business…of both kinds. 

 

But he also has to pay off the local cop, for the privilege of operating without too much scrutiny. The movement of envelopes. 

 

Finally, we zoom all the way out to the big money, the old money, the white money. And we find that the van Wyke’s are every bit as corrupt as Miami Joe. Sure, they move bigger envelopes and use lawyers to do so. But they don’t neglect the less savory stuff. They even have their hired thugs, who may have lighter skin but operate in violence every bit as much. 

 

For Ray, corruption is just part of the game, it is what he needs to participate in to survive and thrive in the world he was born into. And as the book puts it, when it comes to being crooked, Ray is just a little bit bent. Compared to the big players, he isn’t much of a crook. A little fencing here and there, a few shady deals, and a good revenge, but really, he sells furniture. At least that’s what he tells himself.

 

There are a lot of things I really loved about this book. The characters are memorable and realistic. Ray Carney is incredibly relatable, even if I am such a square that I really don’t have a hustle, and would never succeed with one. 

 

Ray’s employees, Rusty and Marie, get enough backstory to make them three dimensional, even if they are fairly minor players. Ray’s wife Elizabeth, (probably) ignorant as to his criminal activities, but trying hard to navigate between Ray’s world and her parents’ world. 

 

Pepper, the veteran (and veteran crook) who provides the muscle and street smarts when Ray needs it. Cousin Freddy, who is hopeless. “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble” is his lifelong mantra. And a bunch more characters, most of which are nuanced and human. 

 

The ethical landscape is also complicated, and, like any good crime novel, you find yourself uncomfortably rooting for “the bad guys.” This is even more so because Ray is an underdog, and really didn’t want to get involved. 

 

I also want to mention a few scenes. The riots are seen from a few different perspectives, as the book unfolds. One of those is Freddy’s - he ends up caught up in them while looking for a sandwich. And probably high as a kite. “Man, I was HUNGRY! I just wanted a sandwich, and all this rioting…” 

 

The revenge on Duke is delicious and well deserved. And mostly self inflicted - it almost feels like a Count of Monte Cristo comeuppance. 

 

Whitehead did a lot of research for this book. While he lived in Harlem until age 5, most of his childhood was spent in Brooklyn. In order to get things right, he walked all of the locations - and made sure he had the right kind of housing or business for the address. 

 

He also researched mid-century modern furniture, which means that literally every advertising slogan in the book came from an actual advertisement of the time. There is so much loving detail about the furniture that went well over my head (particularly because I listened to it on audio and didn’t have the chance to google stuff.) 

 

I’m sure there are other things I could mention, but I’ll just end by saying that this was a thoroughly enjoyable book. Whitehead is an excellent writer. There is more to this book than a simple yarn, although it is certainly a fun story. 

 

***

 

The audiobook was mostly good, but it had a few flaws. Dion Graham is a good narrator, and kept the voices separated quite well. However, there were a few spots when he seemed to pause in strange spots, as if he missed the line break and had to find his place. I totally get how this would happen, but usually these are fixed in production. Likewise, in a complaint I unfortunately have to make all too often, the recording lacked sufficient compression, which meant that some parts were too soft to hear easily without driving, but if you turned it up, you got painfully blasted with the loud parts. I am not sure why some audiobooks have this problem and others don’t. I wish publishers would keep in mind that many of us listen while driving, and we need more consistent audio levels. 

 

***

 

This book reminded me a bit of Deacon King Kong by James McBride - another modern African American author that I really enjoy. That book is a bit more absurd and farcical, but the humor surrounding gangsters is in both. 

 

***

 

And, of course, the song which inspired the title. I’m going with the original Bob & Earl version, not the Rolling Stones cover. 

 

The Nutcracker and the Monomyth

This post grew out of a quick comment I made on social media during our annual Nutcracker week. 

 

For background here, I have been playing in a local production of Tchaikovsky’s famous ballet since 1997. There were a few years without an orchestra - 2020 of course, for reasons - and a couple at least where funding was an issue. (There’s a long story there that I won’t get into…)

 

 A scene from our local production in 2021.

 

This is one of two works that I have done the “upper string hat trick.” That is to say, I have played 1st violin, 2nd violin, and viola over the years. (The other is Handel’s Messiah)

 I believe this is from a rehearsal in 2021 because of the masks. 

I'm to the left of the conductor and playing viola.

Although it has been a few years since I sat in a place where I could see some of the dancing, I have a fairly good idea of the storytelling that our company does, and I have seen filmed versions. 

 

Because of this, I have been thinking for years about the deeper meaning of the story. After all, it has become one of the most beloved things of Christmas culture, and not merely because of Tchaikovsky’s delicious music. 

 

The Nutcracker endures because it has an emotional and psychological resonance with our human experience. 

 

Nearly a decade ago, I read and blogged about The Hero With a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell, and found that it did describe many of the common features of myths from around the world. (And you can certainly find it in 20th Century pop culture, in part because of Campbell’s influence on artists.) 

 

If you think about it, The Nutcracker is the rare female version of what Joseph Campbell called the "monomyth":

 

"A hero ventures forth from the world of common day into a region of supernatural wonder: fabulous forces are there encountered and a decisive victory is won: the hero comes back from this mysterious adventure with the power to bestow boons on his fellow man."

 

I’ll get to that more in a minute, but I also want to mention two other facets of the psychodrama that are important to understanding the appeal of the story.

 

First is a Freudian idea: Clara’s dream (or is it a dream?) is very much a working out of her friction with her brother. I’ll get to that as well. 

 

Second is that the ballet version (with the story borrowed from a retelling by Alexandre Dumas) changes some details of the original story by E.T.A. Hoffmann, including the ending, in a way that makes the tale a lot less dark, and allows Clara to be a true heroine. 

 

For those unfamiliar with the story, I will give the version that we do, which is pretty similar to other productions. 

 

Clara is a young girl with a younger, bratty brother, Fritz. Their family is having a Christmas party, and Fritz and the boys spend most of it harassing the girls and trying to ruin things. 

 

In the middle of it all, Herr Drosselmeyer, Clara’s godfather, shows up. He is a kind of spooky and mysterious man, and also a mechanical inventor. He brings a bunch of seemingly magic toys - dolls that can dance and play through their mechanical workings. 

 

He also brings a present each for Fritz and Clara. Fritz gets a giant mouse, which he promptly uses to chase Clara. The gift for Clara is a toy soldier that can crack nuts with his jaw. 

 

Fritz, naturally, is insanely jealous, and grabs the nutcracker, breaking it. While Drosselmeyer is able to fix it a bit, it has still been damaged. 

 

That’s your Freudian setup there, and it will play out in the rest of the story. In the ballet, this is roughly the first half of the first act. 

 

Late that night, Clara sneaks downstairs to see the nutcracker again, but things are not as safe in the dark. The mice are gigantic, and not at all friendly. She sees Drosselmeyer, who chases the mice away temporarily, and then uses his magic to cause everything to grow. Or is Clara shrinking? 

 

In any case, she is now the size of the nutcracker, who has come to life, along with other toys. The mice come back, and fight a battle against the toy soldiers, who are no match for the larger mice. 

 

When all seems lost, Clara distracts the mouse king long enough for the Nutcracker to kill him. But unfortunately, the nutcracker appears mortally wounded himself. 

 

Drosselmeyer appears once again and rewards Clara for her heroism: he heals the nutcracker and transforms him into a handsome prince. The two of them dance off through the snowy forest to his magical Kingdom of Sweets, to meet the Sugar Plum Fairy and the other denizens of the land of magic. 

 

Thus ends the first act, which contains most of the actual story. All that is left is for Clara to wake up under the Christmas tree and wonder if she dreamed it all. 

 

The second act of the ballet is mostly a procession of stylized dances: that is what a 19th Century ballet audience would have demanded, and indeed, the ballet wasn’t particularly popular at first. It had too many children in the first act, the story got in the way of the dancing, the battle scene was too chaotic, and it wasn’t properly tragic. Subsequent audiences obviously see things differently. 

 

Let’s look at the story in light of the monomyth:

 

Clara leaves the common world for the magical world, encounters the nefarious mice, wins a decisive victory through her own courage, experiences the magical blessings of the kingdom of sweets, and eventually returns to the common world bearing stories and essentially becoming an adult.

 

In our productions, we have used two dancers for the part of Clara. Little Clara is typically danced by a tween, while Dream Clara is danced by an older teen or even adult. There are two reasons for this. 

 

First, the Dream Clara part requires significantly greater skills (at least in our production). She has to dance a pas de deux with the prince on their journey, for one thing. Second, because of the romantic nature of this dance, it is less icky with the dancers closer in age. 

 

I mention this because part of what happens during Clara’s journey is her own inner transformation. She has essentially become a woman. She has asserted herself in courage, and has been rewarded by the gods - and respected. 

 

This is very much like the monomyth as Campbell describes it, and also strikingly like male-centered coming of age myths around the world. 

 

The nutcracker starts off in disguise, and poses a test - an ordeal - for Clara to face. Once she passes the test, he reveals himself as the god he is, and takes Clara to Olympus to meet the others. Including the head deity who is female - the Sugar Plum Fairy. 

 

When Clara returns to the real world, she may still look like a child, but we all know she has come of age, and will never be the same. 

 

Is it any wonder that generations of girls have thrilled to this story? 

 

Those other factors come into play as well. In most fairy tales where a girl tries to do the boy thing - go on adventures, take risks, step outside of her prescribed role - she is brutally punished. (The Little Mermaid - the original story - is a case in point.) Perhaps she dies. Perhaps she is tainted and will never marry. At the least, she returns home chastened. 

 

But not Clara. 

 

She is the heroine. 

 

 And she has not been rescued by the prince, but has rescued him. 

 

This is where the change by Dumas to the story actually makes it better in a significant way. (Better in this case meaning making the story into a version of the monomyth, not a diss of the original, which is mostly just…weird.)

 

The story endures in popularity because it resonates in an era when women are increasingly able to have their own adventures, and come of age not by marrying but by growing up. And also, just like girls have had to identify with male protagonists due to a lack of female ones, many boys these days have learned to see themselves in badass female protagonists as well. 

 

I mean, who doesn’t root for Clara in this ballet? 

 

Finally, the issue of the annoying sibling, and the fantasy of, of not revenge exactly, of being able to transcend the annoyance. Maybe someone out there has nothing but perfect siblings, but I suspect that is rare. We have all had our moments of dealing with a Fritz, desperate for attention and acting out in antisocial ways. 

 

Put all of this together, and you get a great story that still draws us in. 

 

Because I am a music nerd, I will also mention some musical things. 

 

Tchaikovsky's musical score takes this journey as well, starting out in the key of Bb Major. From there, it takes a meandering journey to end the first act in E Major, which is a tritone (6 half steps) away from Bb - the furthest one can go.

 

The second act reverses this journey, going from E Major back to that home key of Bb Major, this time in a triumph of the returning hero.

 

I always found that interesting. Tchaikovsky knew what he was about - I have read his book on harmony, and it is fascinating, even though I am not a composer - and I believe he was intentional in his tonalities. 

 

Many composers had synesthesia - as do many musicians including myself - and associated different keys with colors, moods, and emotions. This work is a magnificent demonstration of that. You can very much hear color throughout - and I would say texture as well. 

 

The best examples are the bitingly crisp ice of E minor in the Waltz of the Snowflakes and the sticky gummy A Major of Mother Ginger. 

 

To use the tritone to give the maximum separation between the real world and the fantasy world is pretty brilliant, and I think is evidence that Tchaikovsky understood the story as one of the quest, the coming of age. In that final apotheosis on the last page, Clara is back home, and her parents do not believe her story. But the music: it is in that home key of Bb major, but the tune is the theme for the Kingdom of Sweets. Clara is back in the real world, but her adventures still live inside her. 

 

Very much the monomyth in music. 

 

I hope that with this post, I haven’t ruined The Nutcracker by infusing it with too much psychological weight. It is a fun story. But if you think about it…there is a bit more to it than you might expect.