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Harlem Shuffle, by Colson Whitehead

Following two Pulitzer Prize winning novels in a row, Colson Whitehead has written a third brilliant portrait of systemic racism in America, wrapped in a deep dive into mid-twentieth century Harlem. This time the focus is on multi-class strivers and crooks and how they interact and mirror each other in a masterful, spare and engaging narrative – Harlem Shuffle.

Whitehead divides his tale into three sections that skillfully develop his main character Ray Carney in his three roles as committed family man; enterprising furniture store owner and part-time, small-time middle man for stolen TVs –“…only slightly bent, when it came to being crooked.” He becomes a proud striver who’s family now lives on Riverside Drive, Carney’s dream location but aims for the prestigious Striver’s Row, owner of a much expanded retail enterprise and go-to fence for major Harlem criminal Chink Montague.

Part One – The Truck
The narrative opens in 1959 and introduces us to Ray’s wife Elizabeth, a cut above him in class and color and his strong emotional support; his deceased father Big Mike, a former full blown player in the local crime scene and cousin Freddie, Ray’s handsome soul mate since childhood who is both bone-headed and lacking in common sense. Freddie draws from his deep knowledge of Ray and his fascination with his father’s criminal underworld to volunteer Ray as a fence for the proceeds from a heist of the St. Theresa Hotel. Thus Ray begins his reluctant descent into a deeper level of criminality, and a higher class of living financed initially by the $30,000 Ray discovers in the wheel well of the old blue truck he thought was his sole legacy from his father, but was actually only the tangible element.

Part Two – Dorvay
In 1961 Ray connects with this centuries old practice of interrupting sleep with several hours of awake time. He describes his personal Dorvay as “…a period of focused rage,” his middle of the night crooked hours during which he plots his revenge against Wilfred Duke, the financier who bilked him out of a $500 envelope with the broken promise of membership in the exclusive Dumas Club. Ray develops an intricate plan to ruin Duke based on calling in stored up favors from envelopes he’s been coerced to provide in the past and some new ones, to a wide variety of criminal types, including the corrupt policeman Munson. After all “An envelope is an envelope. Disrespect the order and the whole system breaks down, “says one of them. Once the plan unfolds, Duke is ruined by scandalous photos taken during his drugged sleep at his favorite prostitute’s apartment on Convent Street. Describing the only downside of his revenge, Carney concludes, “Black eye aside, it had all been a pleasure.”

Part Three – Cool it Baby
It’s now 1964. The World’s Fair and riots in Harlem over the death of a black boy killed by a policeman are taking place simultaneously. They provide Whitehead an ironic juxtaposition of progress in the overall cynical bent of his narrative – “Good old American know-how on display: We do marvels, we do injustice, and our hands are always busy.” At the Dumas Club, many of Wilfred Dukes’ associates have also been disgraced, and the rules of membership have evolved to welcome younger entrepreneurs like Ray Carney, who detective Munson describes as “the biggest nobody in Harlem.” Back at the furniture store, Ray reluctantly agrees to stash an expensive looking briefcase filled with jewelry and papers stolen from the Van Wyk mansion by cousin Freddie and his drug-addled buddy Linus Van Wyk, scion of that super wealthy real estate family. Following discovery of Linus’ murder and a harrowing attempt to fence the jewelry, Ray and his hired gunman come face-to-face with the deep corruption of the Van Wyk empire, the ultimate strivers. Whitehead calls their economic development activities more destructive than the mayhem wrought by the riots and says, “The devastation (caused by the riots) had been nothing compared to what lay before him now, but if you bottled the rage and hope and fury of all the people of Harlem and made it into a bomb, the results would look something like this.”

As Part Three concludes, Carney cradles the dying Freddie in the bed of the legacy truck speeding to the hospital. He looks up at the stars, noting that unlike when he and Freddie were growing up together and the stars made them feel insignificant, the stars now make him feel recognized, because he has found his station in life and intends to make himself into something.

Whitehead’s vivid and eye-opening portrait of life on the raw side in Harlem at mid- twentieth century offers a gripping tale of ambition and malevolence in a rapidly changing and racially tense melieu that combine to whet the reader’s appetite for a sequel.

— Sue Martin

Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention — and How to Think Deeply Again, by Johann Hari

In Stolen Focus, Johann Hari argues that elements of our existing culture are eroding our ability to concentrate and stealing our ability to truly enjoy life. Hari makes clear that this is not a self help book with an easy recipe for personal improvement. To be sure, there are practices that we all can take up to battle this assault on our focus. However, much of the challenges we face are societal and need a society-wide movement to address them.

Hari explores his own recognition that his focus was being stolen. In an attempt to reclaim it, Hari took a personal months long screen-free technology detox in Provincetown. While somewhat successful in helping Hari reclaim the ability to read books, creatively write, daydream, and sleep again, the effects did not last long past the end of the detox. Hari also recognizes that such an exorcise is not feasible for most of us, and it does not address the root causes of our focus being stolen.

From processed food to environmental pollutants to a lack of unsupervised play, Hari takes us on a tour of factors impacting our attention. In particular, Hari takes a long look at how social media actively uses subconscious techniques to covertly keep us engaged online. Such online engagement is used to feed the profits of the existing “surveillance capitalism” business model. Silicon Valley designers use various tools such as building virtual “voodoo doll” models of individuals to predict our future behavior. Likewise, they use “negativity bias” to keep us engaged by feeding us increasingly negative or fringy content. However, many of these Silicon Valley designers have come to regret their long term impact on society.

“One day, James Williams–the former Google strategist I met–addressed an audience of hundreds of leading tech designers and asked them a simple question: “How many of you want to live in the world you are designing?” There was a silence in the room. People looked around them. Nobody put up their hand.”

But, if this is not the world we want to live in, then what can we do about it? One of the interesting concepts discussed in the book is “cruel optimism.” In our society, we have a tendency to lean on rugged individualism to face problems. While such self-reliance may be admirable in some circumstances, it can be “cruel” when faced with challenges that have deeply rooted societal causes. Such deeply rooted societal causes often go beyond the ability for us to address on an individual-by-individual basis. With our focus, it is tempting to believe that we are completely in control of our own fate, but Hari argues that there are tremendous societal forces acting against us that need society wide solutions.

— Jim Lynch

She Walks These Hills, by Sharyn McCrumb

Katie Wyler began her trek through the Appalachian Mountains in 1779, escaping from the Shawnee warriors who had abducted her and killed most of her family. Now, nearly 250 years later, she’s still wandering, showing herself mainly to Nora Bonesteel, the wise woman who lives at the top of the mountain and has second sight. Katie‘s trek creates the backdrop of this book, which is about journeys of love, life, nature, justice, and retribution.

Hiram Sorley, given the unfortunate nickname Harm, has just escaped from prison, where he was serving a life sentence for a murder he does not remember. He has Karsakov syndrome, a memory disorder that is caused by alcohol poisoning, no doubt from the moonshine he consumed in his mountain home. Harm has no fear of being caught because doesn’t realize he’s an escapee. He thinks he has been out hunting or logging, and is eagerly returning home to his beloved wife, Rita, and their daughter Charlotte.

One thing Harm is sure is that the Lord will take care of him, and the Lord oddly does provide Dinty Moore stew, a can opener, peanut butter, and even a backpack to carry it all in. In less biblical reality, these are all courtesy of Jeremy Cobb, who is also walking the hills tracing Katie steps as part of his doctoral work. He’s a better philosopher than hiker and is not so good at paying attention to regional experts, so he heads out with a pack far heavier than he can carry. To lighten his load, bit by bit he throws things along the path. Harm, following behind him, picks them up.

Jeremy doth provideth.

Author Sharyn McCrumb weaves together multiple stories of love—real, flawed, life-affirming, and dangerous—through the centuries. There’s Katie returning to a disastrous reunion with her fiancé Rab. Harm reuniting heroically and tragically with Rita and Charlotte. Deputies Martha and Joe, struggling with Martha’s new job and Joe’s PTSD from the Vietnam war. Sad Chrystal$ is looking for a warm body. Poor Sabrina, ensnarled in a miserable relationship and looking for a way out, responds to violence with violence.

Rita is living life enclosed in plastic with her second husband, the perfectly named Euell. Charlotte, now in graduate school, is becoming an expert on the geology of the Appalachians, which impresses her mother not at all, but gives McCrumb a vehicle for showing the richness of the land, even though Charlotte naively ignores its significance to the humans living on it.

Toward the end, Nora puts much of this into perspective, telling Jeremy that Sabrina is a modern embodiment of Katie. Despite centuries of folklore, Katie is not the beautiful, clear-skinned woman we might envision, but was poor, underfed, with stringy hair and sallow skin.

As with all of McCrumb novels, the mountains are a significant character. And their degradation, through environmental abuse and development, is a key plot driver. Nothing grows on Harm’s land, 30 years after toxic chemicals were callously dumped onto it.

This is the third of McCrumb’s 13 ballad novels. It was published in 1994, but it has lost little relevance. BBB has read two others in the series: The Hangman’s Beautiful Daughter, and The Songcatcher.

— Pat Prijatel