Status Updates From El ritme de Harlem

Just so impossibly in love with this thing so far. The Michael Corleone-style “surrounded by crime all his life, has always kept his nose clean, but can’t resist the gravitational pull of That Life once the heat is on” arc that Carney’s slowly slipping into is so satisfying and Whitehead’s prose is really just incomparable. Simple but masterful. The Tim Duncan of writers.

This is like the Fat City of crime novels. A novel about all the real, working class lives that revolve around the outer orbit of crime. A novel about what it’s like to be a real dude living in a place where crime is a language you’re semi-fluent in. North of “puedo ir al baño” but south of carrying on a full conversation. North of Chester Himes, south of James Baldwin, in terms of New York story tones.