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Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead

Episode 9: Fathers and Sons

Duration: 14 minutes

First broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 FMLatest broadcast: on BBC Radio 4 LW

From the author of The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys, a sizzling tale of heists and shakedowns, kickbacks and hoods, set in 1960s Harlem.

“Ray Carney was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked...”

To his customers on 125th street, Ray Carney is an upstanding salesman of reasonably-priced furniture. Not many people know he descends from a line of uptown crooks, and that his façade of normalcy has more than a few cracks in it.

When his cousin Freddie falls in with a crew who pull off one of Harlem’s most outrageous heists, Ray finds himself in way above his head. Can he succeed in living a good life in a very bad world?

Today: Freddie is in hot water. Will Ray save his feckless cousin yet again?

Read by Rhashan Stone
Writer: Colson Whitehead is the acclaimed US author the Pulitzer Prize-winning novels, The Underground Railroad and The Nickel Boys.
Abridger: Richard Hamilton
Producer: Justine Willett Show less

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