Event – Detail

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

To his customers & neighbors, Ray is an upstanding furniture salesman. Few know he descends from uptown hoods and crooks, and his façade of normalcy has cracks. Cash is tight, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn’t ask where it comes from. Then Freddie falls in with a crew planning to rob the Hotel Theresa and volunteers Ray as fence. The heist doesn’t go as planned, now Ray has to cater to a new clientele: shady cops, vicious minions of the local crime lord, and numerous Harlem lowlifes. Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As he navigates this double life, he starts to see the truth about who pulls the strings in Harlem. Can Ray avoid getting killed, save his cousin, and grab his share of the big score, all while maintaining his reputation as the go-to source for all your quality home furniture needs?