How long does it take to read Harlem Shuffle?
Colson Whitehead, Yannick García
Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead, Yannick García takes about 6 hours 10 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
Part of The Harlem Trilogy
Next: Crook Manifesto
About 6 hours 10 minutes
A weekend read
First published 2021. 336 pages, about 92,400 words.
13 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 10 hours 16 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 6 hours 10 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 3 hours 51 minutes |
The page count is the median across 15 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked...'00To his customers and neighbors on 125th street, Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably-priced furniture, making a 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.0Few 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 and bigger all the time.00See, cash is tight, especially with all those instalment plan sofas, so if his cousin Freddie occasionally drops off the odd ring or necklace at the furniture store, Ray doesn't see the need to ask where it comes from. He knows a discreet jeweller downtown who also doesn't ask questions.00Then 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, after all. Now Ray has to cater to a new clientele, one made up of shady cops on the take, vicious minions of the local crime lord, and numerous other Harlem lowlifes.0Thus begins the internal tussle between Ray the striver and Ray the crook. As Ray navigates this double life, he starts to see the truth about 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?00HARLEM SHUFFLE is driven by an ingeniously intricate plot that plays out in a beautifully recreated Harlem 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.
Subjects: Sales personnel, Fiction, Receiving stolen goods, Theft, Jewelry, FICTION / Literary
