An immersive novel with equal footings in voice and plot, “Harlem Shuffle” introduces us to the half-con world of Ray Carney in three segments covering 1959 to 1964.

Carney owns a furniture store in Harlem; his name is right above the window for anyone looking to find him, we’re often reminded. As the book begins, he’s still struggling to cover the rent and provide for his pregnant wife, Elizabeth, and their daughter, May.

He mostly plays things straight at the store, but he’s not above taking the odd piece of “lightly used” merchandise and placing it on the storeroom floor. He is the son of Bike Mike Carney, after all, a thug whose name still resonates years after Big Mike’s death by cop. Ray is haunted by his neglected childhood, but he knows there’s money to be made on the other side of the law. He needs it if he wants to get his family out of their scruffy apartment right over the train.

Ray gets in deeper than he intends, though, when his impulsive cousin Freddie mentions his name to help a crew clear some hot merchandise. And from there, Colson Whitehead engagingly explores the blurred lines between the crooked world and the straight, between Ray reading the literature on the latest lines of Arkesta recliners and the man installing a secret door for his after-hours business.

The narrative is gripping and tight. We flow through a series of scenes, through single-room occupancies and ritzy all-black social clubs as Ray tries to navigate both sides of his business. And business it is. Ray’s a classy guy, a family man. He mostly tries to stay on the up and up. But he can’t help but sink in a little deeper, especially where his cousin Freddie is involved.

As anyone who’s read “The Underground Railroad” knows, Whitehead is a beautiful writer. The lines here are evocative, blending metaphor and broken windows. Sometimes the writing can get a little too rich–you might have to reread a branching sentence when you just want to get through a scene–but on the whole it’s a pleasure.

The story is strong too. Ray is a complex figure, a man of secrets. My only complain is that the book’s resolution comes too easily, with a tidiness that seems unearned. The book sets up a real mess, and while part of me was glad Whitehead didn’t see it through, I couldn’t help but feel teased. But I’m glad to see he’s written a sequel, “Crook Manifesto,” as I’m eager to dive back into Ray’s world.

Quotes

“The husband shrank from the merchandise when he came too close to it, as if proximity plucked money out of his pockets. Carney remembered those days, everything too dear and too necessary at the same time, just him and Elizabeth making their way in the world as newlyweds.”

***

“You hear people say, ‘Oh, when our boy came back from the war, he was <i>changed</i>. The war didn’t change Pepper, it completed him.”

***

“In the end, he didn’t have to go into a big pitch at all. What you want in his trade, that most perfect thing, is a product that sells itself, an item of such craft and novelty that it renders the salesman superfluous. He had barely begun his spiel when it was clear that Fucking Over Duke, it turned out, sold itself.”

I’m beyond thrilled to have my short story, “Scheherazade of the Snowdrifts,” published in the latest issue of Consequence Forum! You can see all of the other talented contributors (and order a copy) at the Consequence Forum website.

I was an 11-year-old nerd when X-Men #1 came out, and I was as helpless in the face of its pop-culture domination as a brick wall before the Juggernaut.

I’ve re-read these first issues several times over the years, and I have to say: they hold up. Sure, they’re a bit snappy and superficial and glib, but the art by Jim Lee is absolutely gorgeous. Chris Claremont and John Byrne do a good job with the writing too. There’s a massive cast here, and they successfully dole out enough memorable lines to keep the characterization distinctive and fun.

The pace is breakneck to kick things off. It’s all slightly breathless as a new group of “mutants first” baddies is introduced, Magneto does a heel turn, and a Russian space laser gets ready to blast everyone out of orbit. The whole Magneto arc takes just three issue, including Claremont’s hasty “So long and thanks for all the fish” signoff in the final editorial box. Compared to the decompression era that would follow, that’s insane.

The storytelling here isn’t especially subtle (Claremont manages to shoehorn in the X-men being mind-controlled), but it’s effective. It also feels fresh, which is something the franchise needed after Claremont’s decades-long run; I am a fan, but by the end he got lost in its own mythology and stuck in his favorite themes (i.e., mind control).

This Jim Lee-era embraces the new. Lee himself didn’t stay around for long, and by the time of his departure the lineup was already starting to degenerate into aimless, “X-TREME” stimulus-seeking. But this volume collects the good stuff at the start. I don’t think I would recommend it to an X-men neophyte, but if you read the original issues, you probably won’t regret coming back.

As “Loot” opens, Abbas, a gifted young wood-carver, is pulled out of obscurity to help craft an automaton for his state’s visionary, autocractic ruler, Tipu Sultan.

This is a stroke of luck. Obviously it’s a chance for Abbas to hone his skills and build knowledge in partnership with a French clockmaker, Lucien Du Leze. But Abbas has also been linked, tangentially, to some spycraft against the Sultan. Unbeknownst to him, it’s only Du Leze’s proclamation that the young carver is “a born master” that saves Abbas’ skin.

Abbas and Du Leze begin work on Tipu Sultan’s vision–an automaton of a tiger mauling a British soldier–and author Tania James uses their partnership to craft two beautiful characters. Abbas is proud, artistic, a little vain in his self-regard but open to a wider world. Du Leze is a warm teacher, even as he suffers in his exile from now-revolutionary France, along with his alcoholism and his potentially fatal sexuality.

Set largely in the 18th century kingdom/city of Mysore, “Loot” is most spellbinding in its early sections. It does an excellent job of shaping this unfamiliar (to me) world, establishing a lovely master/apprentice relationship between the two builders. It also finds a fascinating character in Tipu Sultan: intelligent, ruthless, proud, a wannabe enlightened despot who finds that his European partners are more inclined to send him curiosities than the factories and metalworks he craves.

Unfortunately, the British aren’t content to have Tipu control his region’s trade, and so they harry him until he falls, sending our craftspeople out into the world. At this point, “Loot” becomes a fantastical travelogue, an “Around the World in 80 Days” taking us to the open ocean and French shops and the gentry world of the English estates.

While these sections are still engaging, the contrivances build as the characters scatter and reconnect. By the book’s final section, it becomes hard to suspend disbelief about our protagonists and their unlikely receptions, even if you’ve grown to love them enough that you really want to.

Anchored in a beautiful beginning, “Loot” ends up feeling unmoored as it drifts through happening after happening. But James’ easy style and abiding sympathy for her characters keep the book a rewarding read.

Quotes

“Du Leze turns the watch around and flips open another door, exposing a series of delicate golden gears turning against one another. They churn of their own accord, teeth fitting perfectly into gaps. How strange that this is the side being concealed, when the back is far more wondrous than the front.”

“Flung Out of Space” is a rewarding, often prickly graphic novel recounting the creative launch of author Patricia Highsmith.

Set in 1940s New York City, the book captures the author as a struggling artist. Her day job entails writing hack comic books she doesn’t respect; in her off hours, she chips away at a novel that eventually becomes “Strangers on a Train,” famously adapted by Alfred Hitchcock.

Highsmith’s life on the margins is complicated by the fact that’s a lesbian, barely closeted in a homophobic world. The hostility is made clear right in the opening pages, when a bartender tosses Highsmith out after a brief flirtation with another woman.

In writer Grace Ellis’ telling, Highsmith is openly difficult: she’s sneering, short-tempered, anti-Semitic (as shown during a brief encounter with Stan Lee, before his Marvel bullpen days). But how much of that stems from self-loathing fueled by a unaccepting society?

The young author spends her days double-dipping, freelancing at her day job to earn extra income to pay for psychiatric sessions to “make her straight.” Ironically, group therapy ends up introducing her to a new cohort of lesbian lovers, but any happiness the author finds is quickly squelched. A promising relationship dies when the woman’s ex uses video of his wife with another woman to blackmail her into returning home, back to a life of closeted misery.

Highsmith never submits. She remains rebellious, blowing back convention and eventually writing a seminal lesbian novel, “The Price of Salt,” a book that features one of the earliest examples of a happy ending for a gay couple. It’s hard to sell, but it eventually does, despite Highsmith’s best efforts at self-sabotage. (As her agent, whose girlfriend Highsmith slept with, says, “Happy New Year, Pat. Maybe one of your resolutions can be to stop making your own life hell.”)

“Flung Out of Space” is smart and heartfelt. It introduced me to a new perspective on Highsmith, her accomplishments and her limitations. Ellis’ writing is crisp and snappy, a strong match for Highsmith’s own prose.

The art by Hannah Templer is excellent as well. She does a good job capturing the glamour of Highsmith’s affairs as well as the mundanity of post-war living, whether it’s the author’s pool at a budget comics publisher or the temp job Highsmith picks up at Bloomingdale’s to make a little extra cash to fix her own typewriter.