Join Acclaimed Author Colson Whitehead LIVE & IN PERSON To Celebrate New Book "Harlem Shuffle" with Author & STL Native G'Ra Asim & Left Bank Books

Colson Whitehead: In Person & Online

Harlem Shuffle

In Conversation with G'Ra Asim

Thursday, October 28, 7pm CT

To attend IN PERSON visit MetroTix

To attend VIRTUALLY purchase Harlem Shuffle from Left Bank Books

ABOUT THE EVENT

IN PERSON: The in-person event will be held at .ZACK, 3224 Locust St., St. Louis, MO. Tickets for in-person attendance are available through MetroTix and include one signed copy of Harlem Shuffle. ​​​​​Tickets for the in-person event are not available to purchase at Left Bank Books' physical location.

**Proof of vaccination and mask will be required for entry to the in person event.** Guests will need to bring a photo ID AND either their physical vaccination card or a photo of their vaccination card.

Your copy of Harlem Shuffle will be available to pick up at the event.

ONLINE: To join us for the virtual presentation, purchase a copy of Harlem Shuffle from Left Bank Books either online, over the phone, or in the store. Please provide us with a valid email address for sending you the event link. We will email the link to join the virtually the day of the event.

Signed copies of Harlem Shuffle will be available for pick up or mail out the day after the event.

Colson will be doing a private signing before our in-person event on October 28th.

Preordering now will guarantee you a signed copy, which will be ready for pickup or scheduled to ship on Friday, October 29th.

Unsigned books purchased and picked up before the event will not be able to be signed by Colson at the event due to COVID restrictions. Additionally, we cannot honor exchanges of an unsigned copy for a signed copy after the event.

ABOUT THE BOOK

From the two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, a gloriously entertaining novel of heists, shakedowns, and rip-offs set in Harlem in the 1960s.

Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked... To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably priced furniture, making a decent life for himself and his family. He and his wife Elizabeth are expecting their second child, and if her parents on Striver's Row don't approve of him or their cramped apartment across from the subway tracks, it's still home.

Few people know he descends from a line of uptown hoods and crooks, and that his facade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it. Cracks that are getting bigger all the time.

Cash is tight, especially with all those installment-plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace, Ray doesn't ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweler downtown who doesn't ask questions, either.

Then Freddie falls in with a crew who plan to rob the Hotel Theresa--the Waldorf of Harlem--and volunteers Ray's services as the fence. The heist doesn't go as planned; they rarely do. Now Ray has a new clientele, one made up of shady cops, vicious local gangsters, two-bit pornographers, and other assorted Harlem lowlifes.

Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he begins to see who actually 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?

Harlem Shuffle's ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It's a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem.

But mostly, it's a joy to read, another dazzling novel from the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning Colson Whitehead.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Colson Whitehead is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of ten works of fiction and nonfiction, and is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, for The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad, which also won the National Book Award. A recipient of MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, he lives in New York City.

G’Ra Asim, a writer and musician, is an assistant professor of nonfiction writing at Ithaca College. He has served as writing director at the African American Policy Forum and as graduate teaching fellow in Columbia’s Undergraduate Writing Program. His work has appeared in Slate, Salon, Guernica, The Baffler, and The New Republic. When not writing prose or teaching, he sings, plays bass and writes lyrics for NYC DIY pop punk band babygotbacktalk, who were named one of AfroPunk’s “Top 8 Punkest Bands on the Planet Right Now.”

For more information, email Amber N. at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

https://www.left-bank.com/event/colson-whitehead-harlem-shuffle