3 good books

Harlem Shuffle, The Five Wounds, and To Paradise

Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead (2021)

Where do you go after two Pulitzer Prize-winning novels set against the violent backdrops of American slavery and a twisted reform school in the Jim Crow South? To the streets of 1960s Harlem. While lacking the gravity of the aforementioned heavyweights, Harlem Shuffle is just fun. Our protagonist, Ray Carney, “was only slightly bent when it came to being crooked,” less a bumbling crook and more a believer in hard work and a little luck. Ray’s version of the American Dream, like many’s, requires outrunning the mistakes of his youth to secure his family’s future.

The Five Wounds by Kirstin Valdez Quade (2022)

Everyone is trying. Yolanda is trying to hide her illness so as not to burden her unemployed son. Amadeo is trying to start a business and make up for being an absentee father now that his daughter is pregnant. Angel is trying to keep up in school despite her impending teen motherhood. Everyone is trying in their own way, and Valdez Quade gives them plenty of room to make more mistakes on their roads to redemption.

To Paradise by Hanya Yanagihara (2022)

Anyone who subjected themselves to the pain and suffering in Yanagihara’s A Little Life should be rightfully apprehensive about the intentions of her followup. You’ll be relieved to hear that it’s a much different book. You might even call it three different books. Though they have overlapping settings and themes, the three sections of To Paradise operate independently of each other in alternate versions of 1890s, 1990s, and 2090s New York. It’s exquisitely detailed and the characters are as deep as you’re willing to go with them on their explorations of love, loss, and loneliness.