Crook Manifesto reprises characters from Harlem Shuffle: Munson, the corrupt cop who is emblematic of a deeper rot Pepper, the muscle enforcer who elbows into Carney’s home and Zippo, bad seed of an affluent family, now a Blaxploitation filmmaker. The striking composition echoes that of Harlem Shuffle, but with updated vintage elements on the cover, framed by period typography that evokes a time and place Whitehead recreates scrupulously. Play icon The triangle icon that indicates to play

Amid trash scattered across streets and glass shards on sidewalks, Carney feels the tug of his illicit past: “There was always another hand, another conduit, another deal to be made in an enterprise as vast, complicated, and crooked as New York.” He slips back into the old ways, easy as A-B-C, 1-2-3. Elizabeth has grown her travel agency but seems dispirited. He has expanded his business and settled into a contented routine even as crime spikes, racial tensions swell, and politicians flail like toddlers on an urban playground. In an exclusive, Oprah Daily reveals the cover for the novel, which Doubleday will publish on July 18 of next year.Īs the 1970s dawn in an increasingly combustible Manhattan, Carney is on the straight and narrow, “retired” from his “fencing” (larceny) days, anchored in a brownstone on Strivers’ Row with his “elegant” wife, Elizabeth cheeky teenager, May and sweet-tempered son, John. Now comes Crook Manifesto, second in a proposed trilogy, whose pleasures may eclipse those of its predecessor.

He mapped his protagonist’s fraught movements through the twilight of the Eisenhower years and into a new frontier: a furniture store on West 125th Street, where Carney had hung his shingle, selling showroom beauties in transactions both legit and not-so-much. In 2021, Colson Whitehead-who has won back-to-back Pulitzers for The Underground Railroad (which was also an Oprah’s Book Club selection) and The Nickel Boys-lured readers into what they thought was a one-off: Harlem Shuffle, a captivating tapestry of heist caper, dark comedy, and social novel.

2021 colson whitehead novel