GROSS: I want to start by asking you to do a reading. Thanks for writing it, and thanks for coming back to our show.ĬOLSON WHITEHEAD: Yeah, thanks for having me back. TERRY GROSS, BYLINE: Colson Whitehead, welcome back to FRESH AIR. Terry spoke with Colson Whitehead last year. The novel is about Ray's dual life, class divisions within Harlem and the crimes of the elite compared to crimes on Ray's level. The main character, Ray Carney, owns a furniture store on 125th Street in Harlem, but he has a side line trafficking in stolen goods as a fence or, as he prefers to think of it, a middleman, nothing like his father, who was more of a full-time crook with crooked friends. His latest book is a crime novel called "Harlem Shuffle," set in Harlem between 19. He also wrote a novel about a plague where everyone who's infected becomes a zombie and a memoir about playing poker. There are many sides to Colson Whitehead's writing. "The Nickel Boys" is based on the story of the Dozier School for Boys in northern Florida, a reform school infamous for its mistreatment and brutal punishment of boys who were sent there and for buried bodies discovered on its grounds. It was adapted into a Peabody Award-winning TV series. Our guest, Colson Whitehead, is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner for his novels "The Underground Railroad" and "The Nickel Boys." "The Underground Railroad" is about a 15-year-old enslaved girl who escapes a brutal Georgia plantation.
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