Criminal Rule (The Crook’s Manifesto in English) is the 9th novel by the American writer Colson Whitehead (double winner of the Pulitzer Prize as Tarkington, Faulkner and Updike) and the second book of his Harlem trilogy, started in 2021. While the draft Published in English in July 2023 in the United States, the French translation joined the shelves of our bookstores on October 1, to our greatest joy.
Like the previous one Harlem Shuffle, Criminal Rule divided into three parts which are all small stories revolving around the twenty one characters and taking place in the New York area. Two people stand out from the rest: Ray Carney known as Carney, a furniture dealer by day, four by night. And Pepper says Pepper, a man of many hats: bodyguard, robber, revenue thief…
Two thugs with big hearts and Harlem figures whose corruption, violence and drugs that plagued the entire city in the 1970s brought despair, but always with humor – as the author who gives life and speech for them – they carry theirs splendour on the streets of the neighborhood, firmly against kidnapping, murder and other arson (a good opportunity to collect the insurance policy) that punctuate their lives despite a promise – many times renewed – to warden.
We will come across, through their adventures, scoundrels in search of one last big hit, the Black Panthers and the Black Liberation Army looking for weapons to make the revolution, movie stars who disappear, pyromaniac leaders (or maybe the other way around), corrupt politicians and gang leaders with a thirst for blood and territorial devastation.
« A sign that the city was declining, the Upper East Side was also beginning to struggle. » Even if it is not obvious at first glance, Colson Whitehead loves New York, the city where he was born in 1969. He loves it so much that he makes it the main character in the his book. The movements of the buildings and their inhabitants multiply – he would like to present each street, each one brownstone,each source – to the extent that the story often takes a back seat.
Too bad. That’s not what’s important.
What is important is to show the city, its evolution and its contradictions. The concept of eternal return includes the work of the former Harvard professor. On the streets of Harlem and Brooklyn, children playringolevioa type of touch-and-go game where you have to conquer the opposing team’s territory.
Once they are adults, they reproduce the same pattern, handguns instead of hands. Everything changes, but everything remains the same, regardless of what we think.
This is the conclusion the author draws: “It wasn’t like it was before, they said, we prefer the way it was before. They always said that when the old city disappeared to make way for something new.»
2024-10-12 06:11:00
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