“I remember when it wasn’t this hot in September,” says Colson Whitehead as he settles in for a conversation about his new book Harlem Shuffle. Along with about 200 Chicago area book lovers, Alexis and I are in a stifling tent on a sweltering late-summer afternoon. Printers Row Lit Fest returned for the first time in two years, with the awarded author filling the role of the headliner.
Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Nickel Boys was our introduction to Whitehead. It tells the story of a promising young student, blessed with a sharp mind and an innocent heart, plucked from the brightest future and thrown into the dark, demonic dungeons reserved for America’s unwanted and forgotten children in the Jim Crow south. With a storyline and dialogue inspired by true accounts, it is more accurate and vivid than reality. Like many of you, we were utterly captivated by that book, but it left a lingering sadness in our hearts after the final chapter. Whitehead assures us he isn’t immune to the effect of his fiction, which is why he purposely designed Harlem Shuffle to be lighthearted and fun in comparison.
Where did he find the inspiration for these characters? He can squeeze inspiration from anyone and anything. For example, as a kid, he found the language around the underground railroad so vivid that he thought it was a literal railroad under the earth. “Oh, wouldn’t that be an interesting premise for a book,” he thought. His novel The Underground Railroad came from that spark, earned him his first Pulitzer, and is now a television drama. He’s a man of disciplined curiosity, a combination desired by any writer.
In Harlem Shuffle, Whitehead returns yet again to the city that made him. “I keep writing about New York because I haven’t figured it out yet. I owe it a great debt. It shaped who I am.” What about the borough that serves as both the backdrop and supporting character? “I identify with the Fort Greene and Bed-Stuy neighborhoods of Brooklyn, where I lived as a young writer. The Harlem of the Harlem Renaissance, I never identified with it. Also, I doubt writers who lived through it [would look back on it as fondly as we’d expect]. So, the Harlem of this book is a place I created, based on many influences.”
Books and memoirs of people who lived during the period of his characters informed the slang and jargon within Harlem Shuffle. These include non-fiction from the wife of a man bound in Alcatraz and the biography of a candid junky, all digested to get the vocabulary down accurately. “The language [of the narrator] is very different from, and not terse like The Nickel Boys,” says Whitehead.
At its core, Harlem Shuffle is a heist tale. Not high-tech, fully funded, Ocean’s Eleven types of heists, though. This novel is about a low-fi caper and the colorful characters determined to see the plan through.
If you’re looking for an escape, Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead will be released this Tuesday, September 14th.
Thank you to the American Writers Museum and the 36th Annual Printers Row Lit Fest for this opportunity.