" ... He suspected the revolution had already happened, only nobody could see it and no one had come along to replace what had been overthrown. The old order was rubble, bulldozed into a pile with the long-held assumptions and rickety premises, and now they waited for someone to tell them what was next. No such person appeared."
A searing (literally) depiction of 1970s Harlem and its seedy underbelly, "Crook Manifesto" represents a venue for Colson Whitehead to roll around in exultation at an opportunity to revel in noir. His passion for the genre is apparent in every paragraph, with delightful turns of phrase, memorable personalities, and the use of setting as character.
"The city had recovered, they had survived, the future was here, and it looked like crap. The neighbors complained. It wasn't what had been there before, the people said, we liked the way it used to be. They always said that when the old city disappeared and something new took its place."
As a sequel, the novel brings us back in touch with Ray Carney, the owner of a furniture store who has fought hard to put himself in position to escape the criminal underworld. In the course of three distinct but connected vignettes, he fails spectacularly at staying legit, putting himself in the midst of wild shootouts and dangerous scenarios.
"A cup of coffee costs the same all over and the person who serves it is miserable in the same way, so maybe when you think you're moving around you're marching in place."
Not that it matters to anyone but me, but this is probably my least favorite of Whitehead's books that I've read. But I think that's more a reflection of the incredible run of work he's produced than anything to do with this particular novel. For what it's worth, my signed copy also had a repeated line on two different pages, which felt like either an error or an odd decision.
Readers looking for resolution or answers won't find any in "Crook Manifesto." Instead, Whitehead has written a love letter to a time and place, a rich tribute to the idea that family and home are things we can't escape, that we come to cherish despite -- or because of -- the shared struggle.
"Crooked stays crooked and bent hates straight. The rest is survival."
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