"Cool Machine" | Reviewed by William Winkler

Pulitzer Prize winner Colson Whitehead’s most recent novel, “Cool Machine,” concludes the Harlem Trilogy. The first two novels, “Harlem Shuffle” (2021) and “Crook Manifesto” (2023), tell the story of Ray Clancy, a Harlem native who has grown a successful furniture store through the 60s and 70s, into the 1980s, where the new novel is set.

Clancy, the son of a long-dead small time Harlem crook, augmented the early days of his business by selling the occasional stolen item of furniture or electronics. Over the years his relationship with the underworld grew into a shadow side career as a middleman between thieves and those who could sell their illicit wares, a “fence” in street parlance.

By 1981 Clancy’s legitimate business has grown to the point he no longer feels a need to augment his income. This changes when his wife, as a Black woman, is unable to obtain a loan from banks, even those owned by Black businessmen, to open her own travel agency. Clancy reluctantly agrees to participate in one last illegal activity, a complicated scheme to steal sports memorabilia, including Jesse Owens’s 1936 Olympic gold medal.

The book’s next section moves to 1983, where Clancy’s long-time partner in crime, Pepper, is involved in the theft of a piece of African art and his attempt to return the buyer’s money when the mask is stolen from him as well.

And finally, in 1986, Clancy attempts to atone for his cousin Freddy’s death two decades earlier, a death for which Clancy has always blamed himself. Freddy’s son has run afoul of the Mafia, and it appears that his only chance at redemption is through Clancy’s intervention, which will require him to dispense his trove of ill-gotten gains accumulated over the years.

Whitehead’s books keep Ray Clancy at the heart of the narrative. But the story is shared by the trilogy’s other central character; New York City. Whitehead’s love for his hometown is clear from the novel’s dedication to its final sentence, Whitehead weaves the city’s social, political, and racial conflicts inextricably into the fabric of the story.

“Cool Machine” can be read as a stand-alone novel, with enough allusions to backstory that the reader can find their way through without a great deal of difficulty. To get a full appreciation of Whitehead’s accomplishment, however, one should read the two earlier novels in the trilogy first.

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