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3.67 AVERAGE
3.67 AVERAGE
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Good format with 3 sections about 3 distinct “jobs” but with an interrelated cast of characters. Characterization was great not only for Carney, but for most of the supporting characters as well.
medium-paced
Bit mixed for me, some of the writing is fantastic but overall I never quite fell in with the characters 🧐
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A criminal coming-of-age. Ray Carney is a mostly straight and narrow furniture salesman with lofty dreams who denies the reputation he's inherited from his crooked father. He gets sucked fully into the game by his cousin who can never get it right. Readers are graced by all sorts of slippery character as Carney embraces his dark side.
Not a bad read at all. But something is definitely missing.
Not a bad read at all. But something is definitely missing.
challenging
hopeful
reflective
sad
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Story of an almost honest furniture salesman struggling for survival in Harlem in the 1960's amidst the political corruption, violence and drugs. Believable characters, compelling stories, powerful sense of time and place - excellent writing.
Picked up this book on a whim, having read two of Colson Whitehead’s novels before. This is a good book, a very fun book, about a furniture salesman in sixties New York who desperately wants to be straight but inexorably gets pulled into something crooked. Or is that true? It’s something Carney confronts himself, it’s hard to say no to the benefits of flirting on the fringe of felony, and ultimately, it’s his good heart, his inability to cut his cousin loose, which he might do if he were fully devoted to the criminal activity, that lends the story tension. It’s never a question of getting caught, it’s a question of how much you submerge yourself
It’s also a book about New York, and the ending feels excellent, as Carney confronts the changes of the city, for commerce, for business. The corner shop will be demolished, and the skyscraper will go up.
Also fantastic are the family dynamics
It’s also a book about New York, and the ending feels excellent, as Carney confronts the changes of the city, for commerce, for business. The corner shop will be demolished, and the skyscraper will go up.
Also fantastic are the family dynamics
Might not reach the heights of his last two novels, but as an ever-so-slightly-elevated pulpy crime caper, Whitehead delivers.
