After any chapter of Colson Whitehead’s Harlem Trilogy, I feel as though I am reading a particularly operatic story by Damon Runyon, complete with molls, dolls and Broadway-laden side-eyes. It is the kind of widescreen social drama that immediately reads like a screenplay. With pitch-perfect colloquialisms and deadpan humour, these books tell the story of Ray Carney, a furniture salesman striving to provide a stable, respectable life for his wife, Elizabeth, and their children.
That first volume, Harlem Shuffle, was followed by The Crook Manifesto; now Cool Machine — the description of Ray by an admiring heist merchant — brings it to a close. Ray supplements his furniture dealer income by discreetly fencing stolen goods — a connection to the criminal world inherited from his father. His official career has been crowned with the award of District Salesman of the Month (North West) and a trade magazine profile, but his wife Elizabeth needs money for her new travel company which dullard bankers won’t give a black woman, so Ray step in.
