A death in Harlem : a novel

Format:

Book

Title:

A death in Harlem : a novel

Author:

Holloway, Karla F. C., 1949- author

ISBN:

9780810140813

9780810140820

Publication:

Evanston, Illinois : TriQuarterly Books/Northwestern University Press, [2019]

Physical Description:

x, 234 pages ; 23 cm

Contents:

The fall -- Weldon Haynie Thomas -- Harlem night -- Bound north blues -- Political parties -- The Ninth Annual Opportunity Awards banquet -- Misadventure? -- The morning after -- Downtown-upper east -- Harlem, in between -- After the fall -- The thirtieth precinct-Harlem -- Rumor, gossip, and innuendo -- Indictment -- Obsequies -- Arrested -- The Omada -- Police court -- The brothers' law -- Waiting for Weldon -- Before the fall -- The Harlem Branch Library -- Passing -- Rooms with a view -- Cinnamon and salt -- Color struck -- Just spring -- Witness -- Keys -- Office visit -- Evidence -- Eyes on the prize -- The Palmer method -- Vermilion Parish -- Blood will out -- One too many -- Reshelving -- Without sanctuary -- Minding the gap -- The Omada collection -- Common ground.

Summary:

"Renowned African American studies scholar Karla Holloway has been working on her first novel, "A Death in Harlem," for some years, as she blazed bright, consequential, and broad trails as a professor, dean, and administrator at Duke University. In this Harlem Renaissance mystery, Weldon Haynie Thomas is Harlem's first "colored" policeman, blessed with insight, humor, resourcefulness, and a deep intuition. (While Haynie is a fictional creation, the first African American policeman in NYC, Samuel Battle, also served during this time period, between 1911-1941.) "A Death in Harlem" improvises and extends the plot of Nella Larsen's "Passing" by asking "what happened after the fall?" Officer Thomas investigates the light-enough-to-pass woman who jumped? fell? was pushed? from the Hotel Theresa during the Opportunity Magazine Awards Banquet. While A Death in Harlem is lively and conversational, it's also informed by a deep knowledge of African American culture and history -- which support pointed critiques of the relationships between Harlem's Sugar Hill colored folk, and the regular folk uptown, for instance. Impeccably researched and confidently written, "A Death in Harlem" is a life's work -- an especially fun, stylish, and edifying read"--Provided by publisher.

1927. For some in Manhattan, identity is a performance of passing: for another race, for another class, for someone safe to trust. Officer Weldon Haynie Thomas, Harlem's first "colored" policeman, is called on the case when a light-enough-to-pass woman jumped (fell? was pushed?) from the Hotel Theresa during the Opportunity Magazine Awards Banquet. -- adapted from back cover

Subject(s):

African Americans -- New York (State) -- New York -- Social conditions -- Fiction.

African American police -- New York (State) -- New York -- Fiction.

Homicide investigation -- New York (State) -- New York -- Fiction.

Harlem (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Harlem (New York, N.Y.) -- Fiction.

New York (State) -- New York.

New York (State) -- New York -- Harlem.

Genre:

Detective and mystery stories.

Detective and mystery fiction.

Fiction.

Mystery fiction.

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Salem Main Library	MYSTERY Holloway, K.	Searching... Unknown

Bound With These Titles

On Order

Summary

In A Death in Harlem , famed scholar Karla FC Holloway weaves a mystery in the bon vivant world of the Harlem Renaissance. Taking as her point of departure the tantalizingly ambiguous "death by misadventure" at the climax of Nella Larsen's Passing , Holloway accompanies readers to the sunlit boulevards and shaded sidestreets of Jazz Age New York. A murder there will test the mettle, resourcefulness, and intuition of Harlem's first "colored" policeman, Weldon Haynie Thomas.

Clear glass towers rising in Manhattan belie a city where people are often not what they seem. For some here, identity is a performance of passing--passing for another race, for another class, for someone safe to trust. Thomas's investigation illuminates the societies and secret societies, the intricate code of manners, the world of letters, and the broad social currents of 1920s Harlem.

A Death in Harlem is an exquisitely crafted, briskly paced, and impeccably stylish journey back to a time still remembered as a peak of American glamour. It introduces Holloway as a fresh voice in storytelling, and Weldon Haynie Thomas as an endearing and unforgettable detective.

Author Notes

KARLA FC HOLLOWAY is the James. B. Duke Professor Emerita of English and Law at Duke University, where her research and teaching have included African American literary and cultural studies, bioethics, gender, and law. She is the author of eight books, including Passed On: African American Mourning Stories ; Private Bodies, Public Texts: Race, Gender, and a Cultural Bioethics ; and Legal Fictions: Constituting Race, Composing Literature .

Reviews (3)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Set in 1927, Holloway's disquieting debut examines the seamy side of the Harlem Renaissance. During the Ninth Annual Opportunity Awards Banquet held at the Hotel Theresa, prominent socialite Olivia Frelon, an African-American woman who could pass for white, wins the short story award, but she fails to appear onstage. Instead, a hysterical woman announces that Olivia is lying dead in the street outside the hotel. Apparently, she fell from a high window. Was she pushed? The police arrest a close friend of Olivia, Vera Scott, who recently learned of an affair between Olivia and her husband. Vera's maid, who believes she's innocent, asks Weldon Haynie Thomas, Harlem's first African-American policeman, to investigate, even though he lacks the authority to do so. Meanwhile, Hughes Wellington, a wealthy white entrepreneur fascinated with the black community, hires a PI to satisfy his own interests. The freewheeling ensemble narrative explores the shifting alliances among race and elite social circles. This spiritual successor to Nella Larsen's 1929 novel, Passing, will keep historical mystery fans guessing. (Sept.) Correction: An earlier version of this review misstated the race of one of the novel's characters.

Kirkus Review

A beautiful young woman's fatal fall (or was it a push?) through a hotel's window provokes multiple investigations into all manner of secrets in New York's African American community at the height of the Harlem Renaissance.Called to the podium of the Ninth Annual Opportunity Awards Banquet to receive the prize for Creative Fiction for her short story "Sanctuary," Olivia Frelon misses her cue because she's lying in the street outside the Hotel Theresa, her body shattered by the fall. At first the officers of the 30th Precinct have little interest in her death. When they do act, it's to arrest Vera Scott, Olivia's dear friend, frequent hostess, and wife to Dr. Reynolds Scott, Olivia's lover. Sadie Mathis, Vera's maid, convinced that her employer could never have killed even such a treacherous friend, asks Officer Weldon Haynie Thomas to look into the case on his own. As he patiently explains to her, Weldon has no official standing to investigate; he's not even a detective. But as "Harlem's first colored policeman," he surely has some standing in the community. Agreeing to do what he can, Weldon doesn't know that wealthy, white entrepreneur Hughes Wellington, a frequent patron of the African American community, has already engaged private investigator Sanders Campbell to make inquiries of his own. The secrets that emerge, it turns out, are all about race: racial pride, racial identity, racial passing, and the problematic relations between a Harlem community yearning for self-expression and the white institutions determined to police it while keeping it at a safe distance. Slipping in and out of Weldon's voice, retired Duke professor Holloway (Legal Fictions, 2014, etc.) handsomely demonstrates his self-effacing professional maxim: "If you wait, information will come get you."Holloway brings her period, place, and people alive and provides as a bonus a most unexpected culprit. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Booklist Review

Weldon Thomas, Harlem's first Black police officer, finds himself securing his first death scene when Harlem's newest socialite, Olivia Frelon, plunges from a window during the Opportunity Awards banquet. As the first officer on the scene, Weldon has noted the crowd of upper-crust Harlemites' various reactions, but his report barely gets a glance from the NYPD's white detectives. They quickly arrest Olivia's friend, Mrs. Vera Scott: rumor has it that Frelon and Dr. Reynolds Scott were having an affair. When the Scotts' housekeeper begs Weldon to investigate, he finds that the case against Vera isn't airtight; no one seems to know anything about Olivia's past, and her habit of passing to gain entrée into segregated night spots was a dangerously regular practice. An enlightening and engaging portrayal of the Harlem Renaissance's stratified society, in which African Americans' money and education counted for everything within but little outside. An interesting parallel plotline is dropped too quickly, but Holloway's gifted storytelling makes her, and Weldon Thomas, a pair worth watching. Holloway, a much-published scholar, is a professor of English at Duke University.--Christine Tran Copyright 2010 Booklist