"It was the Jackson 5 after all who put Ray Carney back in the game following four years on the straight and narrow." So writes Colson Whitehead at the start of Crook Manifesto, the sequel to his 2021 novel Harlem Shuffle and the second installment of his Harlem Trilogy. Anyone who has already read Harlem Shuffle will immediately feel the playful smack of humor in this seemingly innocuous sentence: As established in that first book, Ray is a hustler of stolen goods who threads his way through New York's yesteryear in a sometimes heroic, sometimes tragicomic attempt to figure out life, fatherhood, and identity.
What's changed? Harlem Shuffle takes place in the 1960s; Crook Manifesto is set ten years later. It's 1971, and his daughter May is now a teenager — and his quest to find her Jackson 5 tickets underscores how even his beloved R&B music has passed him by in his encroaching middle age. When Motown's hottest new act is a group of brothers young enough to be his own children, how can he not feel older? A generational shift is afoot, and it's not just happening to Ray. Black culture, socioeconomic hardship, institutional racism, and New York City itself are morphing rapidly. Staying on top of it is like tiptoeing on quicksand. In true Ray fashion, he ill-advisedly turns toward Munson, a less-than-up-and-up cop who agrees to help Ray get those precious concert tickets for May. That is, for a price. Naturally, his old partner-in-infamy, the thug ultra-violent Pepper, jumps onboard with reckless charisma.
