Colson Whitehead on Crook Manifesto
b'Colson Whitehead is one of the most lauded writers working today. His 2016 novel \\u201cThe Underground Railroad\\u201d won the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for fiction; he won the Pulitzer again for his next novel, \\u201cThe Nickel Boys,\\u201d in 2020.\\xa0 His career is notable for hopping from genre to genre. As an artist, he tells David Remnick, \\u201cit seemed like, if you knew how to do something, why do it again?\\u201d Whitehead is again trying something new: a sequel. He\\u2019s following up \\u201cHarlem Shuffle,\\u201d his 2021 heist novel, bringing back the furniture salesman and stolen-goods fence Ray Carney. He talks to David Remnick about how he mined the language of mid-century furniture catalogues, and his interest in teasing out the nuance in his characters. \\u201cI\\u2019m exploring different ways of being a criminal and trying to think about who actually is bad,\\u201d Whitehead says. \\u201cCarney has this secret self, this criminal self. But I think all of us have these different uncivilized impulses in us that we have to tame in order to function in society.\\u201d'