“I like writing about American history and race, I like writing about the City, I like writing about pop culture, and I like telling jokes - but all those elements don’t always fit into this or that book,” he says, speaking on the phone from New York. Social unrest, crackerjack scene-setting, a perfectly timed laugh: This is Whitehead distilled, in a way we haven’t seen in a while. I’m like, damn, this riot stuff will cramp a brother’s style.’” Clutching a briefcase full of misbegotten booty, Freddie recounts his experience trying to get a sandwich in the middle of the ruckus: “‘People running up and down, screaming. “Cool It Baby,” one of three connected stories that make up Colson Whitehead’s new novel, “ Harlem Shuffle,” opens in the aftermath of this eruption, when furniture dealer/fence Ray Carney receives a visit from his ne’er-do-well cousin Freddie. In Harlem during the summer of 1964, a white police officer shot and killed a Black 15-year-old boy in front of more than a dozen witnesses, setting off six nights of rioting across the neighborhood. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores.
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