Harlem Shuffle

I received a digital advance copy of Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead. Harlem Shuffle is scheduled for release on September 14, 2021.

Harlem Shuffle was presented to me as a heist novel, which meant I went into the book with certain expectations. This ended up causing some trouble for me as a reader, as this isn’t really a heist novel. Rather it is a story about the Little Man versus Big Crime. There is a heist in the novel, but it occurs very early in the book, and is only described in passing. This story is really about the waves that radiate out for many years after the heist, and how one man (not a part of the heist) deals with those waves.

Since I was expecting a heist novel, I was waiting for the heist to occur. When a heist was described, but as an event that didn’t involve our main character, and occurred fully off-page, I thought that heist was part of the set-up leading to the actual heist of the story. This feeling of waiting for the real event to happen made it difficult for me to get invested in the story. Ultimately, it also made the actual story feel flat to me. Again, this was entirely due to the expectations I had when I started reading, and most likely does not represent the actual story.

The story also covers enough time and introduces enough characters that I got a bit lost in terms of who was who. I think this was also connected to me reading the novel as if it were set-up to an event rather than the repercussions of an event.

Despite the issues I encountered while reading the story, there was an interesting tale here of the fall out from a group of small time criminals pulling a heist that impacted members of big crime.

I recommend Harlem Shuffle for readers looking for a historic crime novel. Just don’t go in expecting a true heist story!