It is the 1980's and New York City is coming out if its 1970’s bankruptcy crisis. Ed Koch is mayor and things are looking up for some people. There is a building boom, with skyscrapers rising every day, but the city's poorest denizens live on the street often literally underground. The city is graffiti covered and "Escape From New York" is playing in the theaters. As the novel opens, Ray Carney, who has been selling Sterling Furniture from his store in Harlem for over 20 years has been chosen by Sterling as "Regional Dealer of the Month - Northeast." Today Ray is being interviewed over the phone for the Company’s magazine. Ray is pretty sure he is the first Black Dealer to ever be chosen for this honor.
Of course, over the years Ray has also had a from-time-to-time side business of fencing stolen property, but Sterling doesn’t need to know that. Then Ray receives a message from his friend Martin Green that says “The new samples have arrived”. This is a code that there is a fence “opportunity” right up Ray’s alley. Ray intends to turn it down (he has mostly gone straight these days) and only have a nice dinner with Green. But when Ray arrives at his friend’s office he discovers Green bound and gagged and two white men with pistols waiting for him. They are looking for Uncle Rich, a legendary uptown criminal mastermind who Ray only knew as Dwayne. Ray, who had just been thinking that he had attained all he could ever want (a wife he loved, two successful children, a beautiful home and the highest accolades in his business) finds himself drawn into the crime world. Again.
This is the third book in the Ray Carney trilogy that Whitehead has been writing over the years. The first book was set in the 1960's, the second book was in the 1970's and now Ray is living through the 1980's in New York City, a city he both loves and doesn't trust. A city that will use you up and spit you out. A city of opportunity (if it doesn't destroy you).
New York City, specifically but not exclusively Harlem, is as much a character in these novels as Ray Carney. You not only see the city, you smell it and feel it as Ray walks its dirty streets. And yet, you see why Ray loves it.
The plot is divided into three parts, each set in different years. This novel is really three inter-connected novellas, a structure that I'm not fond of but that worked perfectly well for me here. In the first section, set in 1981, Ray is drawn, once again, back into crime. In the second part, set in 1983, Ray's friend and mentor Pepper is also drawn back into crime when Ray's wife Elizabeth asks him to act as bodyguard to one of her travel agency clients. Although their adventures cause each of them to decide to pull back from crime, they are both drawn back in when, in the third part, set in 1986, Ray's nephew needs them.
Generally this type of structure lacks propulsion for me but Whitehead is able to keep it going. He writes in a very cinematic style, drawing in the reader at the beginning of each section. Then he uses carefully placed flashbacks and memories to fill in the gaps as the story goes along. He is so good at voices that he can give you a narrative info dump without you really realizing it. He can show you the actions that took place in the past at the same time as he is portraying the actions taking place in the present. I wish I could force every writer who thinks that writing about two periods means you have to put each period in a different chapter to study how Whitehead does it.
But it is his character creation that clinches it for me. He always starts by giving his main characters a good reason for being drawn into the crime world and it always involves family (by blood or choice). In the first part Ray tells himself that he wants extra cash to help his wife Elizabeth who is starting her own travel agency and wants to expand. But no bank will lend to her. In the second part, Pepper simply can't say no to Elizabeth's request because he loves the Carneys like family. In the third part, there is an actual family member involved.
But even as Ray and Pepper have these reasons for going along with a plan, in reality they are both crooks at heart. As Ray thinks: “He’d always blamed other people for dragging him into their messes, but all bullshit aside he chose the chaos himself. Deep down he loved the chaos as much as the next crooked soul.”
As with all of the best novels, Whitehead doesn't just tell a story, he asks questions. In this novel there is the question of nature vs. nurture. There is also the question each character must ask (that another character directly asks), what is it that is truly of value to YOU? There are also questions about colonialism and art theft by colonialists and others. And there is the question of when it is time to hang it all up and retire, and what retirement means.
And then there are the parts of the novel that simply appealed to me, that made me smile or laugh out loud. For instance, Ray has no patience with anyone who voted for Ronald Reagan. Toward the beginning he is impatient with former hippies that sold out and voted for Reagan. By the end, Ray fires one of his sales associates who admitted that he voted for Reagan not once but twice.
I think I read that Whitehead only intended a trilogy for Ray Carney and in a way I'm sad because I would like to see Ray in the 1990's. I also read somewhere that there is to be a series based on the novels and I'm intrigued. In the meantime, if this is the final novel it was a fine one.
