Colson Whitehead Finishes His Harlem Trilogy

Summary

Episode Overview

Podcast: All Of It with Alison Stewart
Episode: Colson Whitehead Finishes His Harlem Trilogy
Date: July 22, 2026
Host: Alison Stewart
Guest: Colson Whitehead

This episode centers on Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Cool Machine, the third and final book in his Harlem Trilogy. The conversation explores 1980s New York, the evolution of series protagonist Ray Carney, generational and cultural changes in the city, and Whitehead’s process as a writer. Whitehead and Stewart share personal New York memories and discuss the deeply layered references—some universal, some deeply niche—that run through the trilogy.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Setting the Stage: Carney and 1980s New York

• Ray Carney’s State of Mind (02:21):
  Whitehead describes Carney as “settled”—his business is running, his kids are grown, but he’s facing existential questions about identity and what’s next in his life.

  “The store is going fine. His fencing career is going fine as well. Little secret… And now the question is, what’s next? Who am I now after I’ve accomplished everything I wanted to set out to do?”
  (Colson Whitehead, 02:39)

• Whitehead’s Own 80s New York (03:14):
  He recalls venturing to Bleecker Bob’s for records, seeing the city change, and being influenced by his “cool older sister” who introduced him to culture and music beyond his age group.

Formative Influences & Literary Inspiration

• On Becoming a Writer (04:07):
  Whitehead’s influences ranged from Stephen King and Arthur C. Clarke to Crime and Punishment and One Hundred Years of Solitude. Magical realism showed him how “highbrow” literary fiction could integrate fantastical elements.

1980s New York Details & Easter Eggs

• Niche References (04:43 – 06:30):
  Stewart and Whitehead discuss references only true New Yorkers—or Black New Yorkers—would catch.

  “You don’t have to get every reference… But those markers are realism…these are real people living in a city you recognize. I want to get it right.”
  (Colson Whitehead, 06:07)

• No Radio Signs (04:57):
  Whitehead notes these signs as an artifact of ‘80s and ‘90s New York and delves into how different characters view displaying them, reflecting tensions in city culture and conduct.

Carney’s Psychological Struggles & Series Themes

• Nature vs. Nurture (07:31):
  Carney’s double life—trying to leave crime but pulled back “when no one’s watching”—echoes familiar questions of identity and inherited behavior.

  “There’s a problem of an integrated self… Who will he be for the next couple decades?”
  (Colson Whitehead, 07:46)

• Elizabeth’s Understanding (08:43):
  Whitehead draws on his own family history—moonshine-running ancestors and all—to reflect on how side hustles and shades of legality have always fueled New Yorkers’ rise to the middle class.

  “I think Elizabeth understands Carney is not always on the up and up, but he’s a good man.”
  (Colson Whitehead, 09:38)

Writing Style, Humor, and World-Building

• Vivid Sentence Craft (09:38):
  Discussing the phrase, “the Spanish lady galumphed between the ottomans,” Whitehead reflects on the control and authority a single, well-chosen sentence gives him over tone and reader trust.

• Location Scouting & Harlem Vibes (10:47 – 11:34):
  While Whitehead lived in Harlem only as a child, he revisited while writing, letting the mood and weather inform his settings:

  “If it’s a sunny day or overcast day, I might pick a different building.”
  (Colson Whitehead, 11:24)

Carney, Furniture, and Research

• Love of Coffee Tables (11:54):
  Ray Carney’s ongoing obsession with furniture—especially coffee tables—is mined for humor and character development.

  “For years I would say, ‘It’s harder to find a coffee table than it is to fall in love.’ And then my wife said, ’Stop saying that, it’s really insulting’. And I was like, you have a good point. So I gave it to Ray.”
  (Colson Whitehead, 11:54)

• Furniture Research (12:33):
  Rather than visiting stores, Whitehead drew on vintage furniture catalogs and Pinterest for authentic slang and product descriptions.

The Heist and New York’s Underbelly

• Planning the Heist & Track 61 (16:30 – 17:46):
  Whitehead describes the painstaking research required to plot a believable heist and the real existence of Track 61, a hidden train line under the Waldorf-Astoria used by presidents.

  “I heard about that on Gothamist or something… I thought, that’s a good vehicle for a heist.”
  (Colson Whitehead, 17:20)

• Bigger Questions: What’s Worth Stealing? (17:46 – 18:32):
  At the trilogy’s core is the question of personal value and transformation. Carney’s journey is a metaphor for the entire trilogy’s thematic arc.

Writing Through Crisis & New York’s Resilience

• Pandemic Parallels (18:32 – 19:40):
  Whitehead compares pandemic-era NYC with the city’s hard times in the 1970s, drawing creative energy from both adversity and possibility:

  “I felt very connected to a living New York spirit… I felt very focused during it.”
  (Colson Whitehead, 18:37)

• Rebellion and the Call for Reinvention

  “You’re casting off what came before…use your wits and your creativity to forge a new self in a new city.”
  (Colson Whitehead, 19:27)

Generational Shifts & New York’s Changing Face

• Pepper and the Next Generation (21:12):
  The trilogy examines New York as a city where every generation remakes and is remade by its culture—Pepper’s aging, and his confusion at new, younger styles exemplify generational change.

Tying Up the Trilogy and New York as Muse

• Nostalgia and Goodbye (22:02 – 22:37):
  Eight years of writing and thousands of pages later, Whitehead feels both satisfaction and relief at ending the series, which deepened his love for New York.

• On “Nailing the Landing” (22:41):
  Whitehead likens finishing the trilogy to finishing a film canon.

  “You want to push the envelope and really bring it home. So that’s basically what Cool Machine is. It’s like Chewbacca has a love scene.”
  (Colson Whitehead, 22:41)

• Why New York Endures (23:49):
  Despite writing multiple New Yorks—allegorical, utopian (zombie), and realistic—Whitehead keeps returning to the city in his fiction:

  “If I got it right, I would stop writing about it, but I haven’t got it right yet.”
  (Colson Whitehead, 23:49)

• A Real New York Easter Egg (24:29):
  On a bench at 93rd and Broadway, there’s a plaque—gifted by his wife—that reads “Colson Whitehead’s Office,” an homage to his writing ritual and neighborhood.

Final Thoughts

• A Secret New York (25:31):
  Whitehead hopes all readers find personal, private resonance in the world he’s built:

  “All of us have our secret New York that no one else can really see. If I can share my weird New York with you, you can hopefully see yours in it as well.”
  (Colson Whitehead, 25:31)

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Memorable Quotes

• “You want to establish their tone. It’s a slangy voice established at a furniture store that I know what I’m talking about and Carney knows what he’s talking about.”
  (Colson Whitehead, 10:10)

• “He does find himself pursued by mobsters, indulging in heists when his wife goes out of town. Personally, I just, like, take a gummy and watch some sci fi movies. But that’s what Carney…does.”
  (Colson Whitehead, 08:14)

• “I keep trying different strategies and attacking the city in different ways and maybe one day I’ll get it right.”
  (Colson Whitehead, 23:49)

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Selected Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:20 - Colson Whitehead’s description of Carney’s mindset at the beginning of Cool Machine
• 04:43 - On weaving 1980s New York references into the novel
• 07:31 - Whitehead discusses the question of nature vs. nurture in Carney’s character arc
• 11:54 - The recurring “coffee table” joke—autobiographical inspiration
• 13:45 - Whitehead reads the opening page of Cool Machine
• 16:30 - Planning and researching the book’s central heist
• 18:32 - Pandemic writing and connecting with the city’s spirit
• 21:12 - Portraying generational shifts in New York through Pepper and new characters
• 22:41 - The challenge and art of sticking the landing in a trilogy
• 24:29 - The “Colson Whitehead’s Office” bench story
• 25:31 - The “secret New York” every reader and resident carries

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Conclusion

With Cool Machine, Colson Whitehead closes out his Harlem Trilogy in style, embedding the criminal underworld and domestic drama of Ray Carney within a deeply textured, lovingly rendered 1980s New York. This conversation brings to life the city’s quirks, the trilogy’s personal stakes, and Whitehead’s philosophical musings on place, identity, and artistic process. Whether reminiscing about “no radio” signs, inventing furniture catalog slang, or mapping the city’s secret tunnels, Whitehead’s vision is both highly specific and expansively inclusive—a true celebration of his and our “weird New York.”

Transcript

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[Alison Stewart]

This is all of it. I'm Alison Stewart live from the WNYC Studios in soho. Thank you for sharing part of your day with us. I'm really grateful that you're here. On today's show we'll hear a live performance from the band Fat Boy Wilson and the Ripleys. And later in the show we'll hear music from Steve Martin and Alison Brown, who brought their ban to the studio. That's the plan. So let's get this started with Cool Machine. Much like how Colson Whitehead had one last book in his Harlem Trilogy to complete complete, his central character in the series, Ray Carney, just couldn't resist one last job. The setting is early 1980s New York. Wall street is booming. Yuppies abound. Mayor Koch is asking, how am I? And New Yorkers are tuning in to watch live at 5 with Chuck and Sue. An older Ray Carney lives on Strivers Row with his wife Elizabeth, and his furniture business on 125th and Morningside. But as straight as Carney presents himself, he's still an occasional fence. The street is still active. The envelopes still move. This time around, Kearney becomes an active heist participant. And as he gets deeper into the job, which literally takes him into the depths of unused tunnels under Grand Central, he wrestles with existential questions about what he values. He's facing, quote, the void, as one accomplice calls it. You have to read Cool Machine to see if Carney finds his answers. The book was published yesterday and author Colson Whitehead is in studio now. It is nice to see you in person.

[Colson Whitehead]

Yes, how do you do?

[Alison Stewart]

I'm doing well. The book begins in 1981. Ray Carney. He's been interviewed after winning Northeast Regional Dealer of the Month in a magazine and furniture magazine. How would you describe Ray Carney's state of mind when we meet him at the beginning of Cool Machine he settled.

[Colson Whitehead]

You know, we first met him in 1959 in Harlem Shuffle. He was his late twenties opening his furniture store and now it's 81. He's middle aged. The store is going fine. His fencing career is going fine as well. Little secret, his kids are in school, moved away, empty nester. And now the question is, what's next? Who am I now after I've accomplished everything I wanted to set out to do?

[Alison Stewart]

So this is set in 1980s New York. You're a born and raised New Yorker. What do you remember about life in New York in the early 80s?

[Colson Whitehead]

I think going back and thinking about the book, what I've put in the book. It was just a great time to be Young. There's a 1983 section that takes place in Lower east side in the East Village. And I would go take the subway down from the Upper west side and go to Bleecker Bob's, buy records, buy Susie Nabansi T shirts and it was a real expedition. I was too young to go to the clubs.

[Alison Stewart]

But you had an older sister who was really into it.

[Colson Whitehead]

Yes, if you're an artist, definitely it helps to have a cool older sister. So I'd walk by her room and she's playing Gang of Four in the Clash. She would take us to repertory movie houses to see like Rebel Without a Cause and stuff like that. And so it was a great, great time to be, to find your cultural self, your cultural awakening.

[Alison Stewart]

Who was a person or an instance in that time that really shaped you as a writer?

[Colson Whitehead]

Oh, you know, I started off reading Stephen King and Arthur C. Clarke and a lot of fantasy fiction. And then I think junior year of high school I read Crime and Punishment and you know, and that made a big impression. And then definitely 100 years of solitude, senior year of high school. And I had loved. I'd been inspired by fantasy literature. And here was a guy who was a Nobel Prize winner, a highbrow author who was using the tools of fantasy and magic realism for literary fiction. So that was a big awakening.

[Alison Stewart]

There are so many great references in this book to 80s New York. Koch, how am I doing? Chuck and sue, live at 5. The no radio signs on Cars. What was your favorite 80s niche reference to work into the book and why?

[Colson Whitehead]

Well, I love the no radio signs. It's definitely an artifact of 80s and 90s New York. If you don't know, people would break into your car and so you'd have portable radios that you would take with you Benzie boxes. And then people would still break in think there's a radio. So people would write signs that say, no radio. Don't break in. And different characters have different responses to that. Carney thinks it's a sign of weakness and capitulation to have a no radio sign. That's saying, basically, just attack me. Pepper, his crony, thinks that it's a break of the code. The prey should not talk to the predator. So it's breaking the lines of conduct. So going back to that time, really, it was just really, really fun.

[Alison Stewart]

It's interesting because there are references here that New Yorkers would get, and then there are references that only black New Yorkers are likely to get. I fell out of my chair when you mentioned John Acheson.

[Colson Whitehead]

Sure. Yes.

[Alison Stewart]

If, you know, you know, are those moments meant as extra or Easter eggs for people? Is it okay for people if they don't necessarily get those parts?

[Colson Whitehead]

Sure. I mean, I was researching John Atchison is not really on Google, but there's actually a Times article from the 80s about hairdressers. But yeah, I mean, you don't have to get every reference from the context. You understand it. But those markers are realism, you know, these are real people who are living in a city that you recognize. I want to get it right.

[Alison Stewart]

I had to wait for many hours for my mom to get a John Atchison.

[Colson Whitehead]

Let me tell you, my mom was always there. Yes.

[Alison Stewart]

My guest is Pulitzer Prize winning author Colson Whitehead. We're discussing his new book, Cool Machine. It follows Harlem furniture salesman Ray Carney and his associate Pepper as they navigate the criminal underworld of the Earth, 1980s New York. Cool Machine is the third and final in his Harlem trilogy. Colson has a book event with with Garden State Author talks in Montclair. That's tonight. And he'll be at Union Square and Barnes and Noble on August 3rd. Wanted to get that out there. At this point, Ray, he's kind of. He's an ankh, as the kids would say. He's got some thoughts on graffiti. How do you imagine Ray feels about the state of 1980s New York?

[Colson Whitehead]

I think he recognizes the need for change and the constant change, but also there's an essential New York character that he's a part of. And so he understands that there's this dynamic process. He's a part of it. But there's an essential New York character that never goes away and can't be defeated.

[Alison Stewart]

I'm interested because on the surface it seems like he has it all. He's got this good family, a home, yet he seems drawn back to Criminal life. He curses his father, a criminal, he said, for putting it in his blood. Is Ray a case of environment versus nature.

[Colson Whitehead]

I think in the first two books I'm wrestling with that question. And now there's a problem of an integrated self. You know, I think he's reconciled a lot of these different warring parts of himself. And the question is, who will he be for the next couple of decades? And that question keeps coming up in the book, posed by different people. Who are you now? Who do you want to be? Who will you be next? And that question is always hanging there.

[Alison Stewart]

Why does Carney always seem to get in trouble when Elizabeth is out of town?

[Colson Whitehead]

He asked that question himself. No one's watching. And that, you know, that evil part of him, that criminal part of him wants to be expressed. And so he does find himself pursued by mobsters, indulging in heists when his wife goes out of town. Personally, I just, like, take a gummy and watch some sci fi movies. But that's what Carney. But this is what Carney does.

[Alison Stewart]

In your mind, does Elizabeth know about Carney's double life?

[Colson Whitehead]

She winks. You know, I found a genealogist, did research on my family and found, like, the first instance of, I think, a whitehead in a newspaper. And it was Augustus, Georgia, 1906. And the headline, it was, drunken Negro Shoots Landlord. So I guess my great, great grandfather didn't want to pay the rent. You know, the guy wasn't killed. And so I told my sister about this, and she's like, oh, well, you know, our grandpa actually ran moonshine for the mob from Canada. And I was like, what? I'm writing a crime novel. I have to use this. Blah, blah, blah. So I went to my mother, I was like, did you know this story about grandpa? And she was like, I know nothing about that. But everyone did a little something those days. I think everyone has, like, their side hustle, their way of getting by into the middle class. And so I think Elizabeth understands that Carney is not always on the up and up, but he's a good man.

[Alison Stewart]

When I got your book, there were these two sentences that I read to everybody. I said, this is going to be a good ride, and I want to read them to you and ask you about them. It's on page seven. And you wrote, it's in the furniture store. There's a woman in the furniture store. And the sentence says, the Spanish lady galumphed between the ottomans. I love that.

[Colson Whitehead]

Right?

[Alison Stewart]

It sets the scene. It tells you what's going on. Did you Observe this person. Or was this a person of your imagination? Or did it just was a scene setting moment.

[Colson Whitehead]

It's made up. But I've galumped. I've seen people galumphed. You want to establish their tone. It's a slangy voice established at a furniture store that I know what I'm talking about and Carney knows what he's talking about. So hopefully all these sentences are working on different registers.

[Alison Stewart]

What do moments like that help you out, help you out as a writer? When you have one sentence that kind of she goes away, we don't hear from her again.

[Colson Whitehead]

I feel in control, like I know what the world is and so I can bend the rules, I can go in different places. Once I've established a level of reality and mastery over the story and the reader hopefully trusts me.

[Alison Stewart]

Did you spend time in Harlem looking at where Ray's store would have been, figuring out details for the story or they. Purely imagination.

[Colson Whitehead]

I lived there until I was in kindergarten, so obviously didn't have that many memories. So I would do location scouting and just walk up and down during the pandemic. I was writing Crook Manifesto and I remember just walking the deserted streets of Harlem and Washington Heights and I'm thinking, oh, is that where Carney's office is? That's a depressing street. Maybe that's his childhood home. Oh, I would dump a body there if I had to, you know, in a pinch. So I'm always, you know, trying to find places that connect with the themes. And if it's a sunny day or overcast day, I might pick a different building. It's really just that, oh, interesting that how I'm feeling and vibing that day.

[Alison Stewart]

We're talking to Colson Whitehead discussing his new book, Cool Machine. At some point in the book, Carney sees what he deems to be the most beautiful coffee table he's ever seen. There's a reoccurring quote in the book that reads, it's harder to find a good coffee table than it is to fall in love. What is it about Carney and coffee tables and me?

[Colson Whitehead]

You know, he's not necessarily a stand in for me, but that's definitely part of my personality. For years I would say it's harder to find a coffee table than it is to fall in love. And then one day my wife said, stop saying that, it's really insulting. And I was like, you have a good point. So I gave it to Ray. But his fascination with furniture is a recurring joke. You know, he'll be in a gunfight or chased by mobsters. And he'll stop to consider the make of the carpet or the make of the sofa. The action slows down and it's a little moment of humor.

[Alison Stewart]

How much research did you have to do into furniture?

[Colson Whitehead]

You have to immerse yourself. So really I wrote a book about elevator inspector. So I went to the library and got passing the elevator inspector exam. You know, took out that book. In this case, I wanted to get the language of 50s furniture catalogs. No matter what interest you have, somebody else has it and it's put on Pinterest. So if you go to Pinterest, you can find complete furniture catalogs. And I'm always stealing slang and nouns and adjectives. So I would just read these catalogs and read about the champagne finish on the couch and. And hopefully use that to furnish Carney's conception of what a furniture world is.

[Alison Stewart]

One of our producers wants to know, did you go incognito into furniture stores and pose as a customer?

[Colson Whitehead]

I don't like to do research in person. The more I can do at home, I'm happier. I am. When you go outside, there's too many people. I don't like people.

[Alison Stewart]

I knew you were going to say that. We'd love to get you to read a little bit from your book. What are we going to read?

[Colson Whitehead]

It's the first page, and it's 1981, and we're setting the stage. The city that year was true to its personality as malformed across the centuries. A monstrous entity powered by innate miseries, operated by brute will and held together by pluck, fury and rebar. It had been flat broke and now clambered from the crater of debt one mucky handhold at a time. Crime, in its ingenuity, devised new permutations daily, making every citizen a victim or a witness. New arrivals poured in hourly, as if there were room, multiplying the local varieties of sadness and perseverance and outnumbering those who'd scurried to the suburbs or fled their last humiliation. It was dirty and sick and plain spoken in its threats. How am I doing? The mayor asked on his rounds, barking like one of the mangy seals installed at the decrepit and neglected Central Park Zoo. A real dump. It was his trademark. Everybody needs a gimmick. How am I doing? The same as everyone else. Tired, banged up, but staggering forth somehow.

[Alison Stewart]

That was Colson Whitehead, reading from his new book, the Cool Machine. We'll have more on all of it. You're listening to all of it on wnyc. I'm Alison Stewart. My guest is Pulitzer Prize winning author Colson Whitehead. We're discussing his new book, Cool Machine. It follows Harlem furniture salesman Ray Carney and his associate Pepper as they navigate the criminal underworld of early 1980s New York. Cool Machine is the third and final final in his Harlem trilogy. Colson has a book event with Garden State Author talks in Montclair tonight. And he'll be at Union Square at Barnes and Noble on August 3rd. Carney, he's a fence. He kind of gets involved with Uncle Rich. A longtime Harlem legend. Rich calls Ray a cool machine. What do you mean by that?

[Colson Whitehead]

I like those two words. They sound, well, cool. It's a line from a song by the Birthday Party, which is Nick Cave's first band. The song is called Release the Bats. It has. It's very surreal. Doesn't make a sense, but he keeps repeating the phrase cool machine. And I was, you know, different phrases were auditioning for titles for the book and that stuck with me. Uncle Rich calls him a cool, calls Carney a cool machine. He keeps his cool under pressure. He's operating at a very high level sophistication. So it seemed to fit him and the general tenor of the book as

[Alison Stewart]

part of the heist that they get involved with. It goes everywhere. It's back to a robbery in Los Angeles. I don't wanna give away too much, but as a writer, how do you plan out a heist? Because it's quite detailed.

[Colson Whitehead]

It's very detailed. You don't wanna get letters saying, actually that alarm system was not made until 1965 or 75. So I spent a lot of time getting it right. I think I walked through it logically. How would I do it? Not that I can hoist 50 pounds of equipment and rappel down a building, but you try to make it realistic and fun and it shows a different side of the characters.

[Alison Stewart]

It's interesting because track 61 plays an important part in this story. It's underneath Grand Central. That's right. Or goes underneath Waldorf.

[Colson Whitehead]

It goes from Grand Central to the Waldorf about six blocks. And it was a short five block spur line and basically used for presidents. You could come from D.C. incognito and then go to your suite at the Waldorf. There's an elevator that would take you from underground. And I heard about that on Gothamist or something, some New York website. And I thought, that's a good vehicle for a heist.

[Alison Stewart]

It's a good vehicle for a heist. We'll leave it that there sort of the bigger picture, the sort of deeper picture of this book is Carney asking himself, what do you value? What's really worth stealing? Why are these questions that are gnawing at him or at you?

[Colson Whitehead]

At this point, it's, you know, it's been a thousand pages. You know, I'm trying to wrap things up and put the first two books into clarity. He's been on this criminal journey, a journey of self discovery. And at the end of the day, there's a lot of question like, who are you? He's been tested in various ways. He's tested other people. The city has tested him. He survived. But who will he be? Who is he actually, deep down? And so that's what I'm trying to get at.

[Alison Stewart]

Were those questions you asked yourself during the Pandemic?

[Colson Whitehead]

I felt, you know, I mean, I had a purpose. I was writing, you know, and usually I knock off around two or three, but because I couldn't leave the house, I had an extra stint from four to seven. So I felt very at peace in my work. I think I was writing about the 1970s during the pandemic and that was a time of calamity in the city. But at the same time artists were working. It was the birth of hip hop and punk and disco and New York salsa. So it was great. A lot of creative energy, even though the city was very depressed. So I felt very connected to a living New York spirit, if that makes sense. It sounds odd, but I felt very focused during it.

[Alison Stewart]

It's interesting hearing you talk about that. I thought about a time of rebellion. Not necessarily rebellion, but this. Like you would do what you wanted

[Colson Whitehead]

to do at the time and find a new language. You're casting off what came before. And circumstances have forced you to use your wits and your creativity to forge a new self in a new city.

[Alison Stewart]

It's interesting. There are so many things. Subtitles in the subtitle sub text in this book. A lot of New York history is in this book, especially Donald Manus and the Parking Violations Bureau scandal of the 80s. The tabloids were all over it. What was it about this particular scandal that made you want to include it in the story?

[Colson Whitehead]

It was 1986 and I was 15 or 16 and really starting to read newspapers, papers in a different. In a deeper way. My parents always bought like the Times and the Post and Daily News and Newsday. So we had all these newspapers around. And I remember just being. He was the Queensborough president, incredibly corrupt, ended up killing himself. And it was one of the first big, huge scandal of the Koch administration. And so I was coming to consciousness as someone in New York City, and I didn't understand how it worked. And so when I was casting about for different pegs for chapters, when should this take place? Or what's a good year? That has always stayed with me as a kind of mystery of not understanding how the city works, but knowing everything is really corrupt. And I think that's one of the lessons of this trilogy.

[Alison Stewart]

What did you want to examine in this book about the way generations sort of embrace New York? Because you have Pepper, who's sort of an uptown guy. He meets the Lower east side art girl. They tried to work together. It was an interesting combination.

[Colson Whitehead]

Pepper is very vital in the first two books. In this one, he's 65. He doesn't necessarily take a beating as well as he did, and other people are replacing him. So there's a younger generation. And he doesn't understand these Negroes with their flare trousers and their big Afros, like, what are you doing? He definitely does not understand hip hop and graffiti. So the same way that the city is changing and buildings are rising and falling, you know, the Twin Towers and its different incarnations keep coming up in the book. Human generations are coming and going, and so that's what I'm trying to represent.

[Alison Stewart]

We're talking to Colson Whitehead discussing his new book, Cool Machine. Now that you're on the other side of this trilogy of Harlem Shuffle, Crook Manifesto and Cool Machine, were you nostalgic writing these books?

[Colson Whitehead]

I felt just very connected. I mean, I think really coming through the pandemic, I love the city more than I ever have in a really corny way. I think narrating that ebb and flow and that dynamism of the city has really sort of clarified my feelings. I'm definitely ready to say goodbye and do something different. It was eight years, which is like the longest I've ever worked on something. A lot of words, you know, a lot of words in one book. If you do a trilogy, it's even three times as many words, apparently. But I had a vision for who Carney is and what the city is. And that, you know, guided me.

[Alison Stewart]

How did the series challenge you as a writer?

[Colson Whitehead]

I think you definitely want to. With the trilogy, you want to nail the landing. And there's so many different characters I wanted to say goodbye to in a proper way, you know, follow through on all the themes that I've. I starred in the Harlem Shuffle and continued in Crook Manifesto, and I'm A Gen X, er, obviously. And my UR trilogy is the Star wars trilogy. And there's a lot of lessons there in sticking the landing. You know, Star wars is great and then Empire is better and then Return is like, sucks, because the Ewoks you want to go. If you're doing a trilogy, Star wars and then Empire, then Empire plus, like, it's Empire. But Chewbacca has a love scene or something. Like you want to push the envelope and really bring it home. So that's basically what Cool Machine is. It's like Chewbacca has a love scene.

[Alison Stewart]

When you say stick the landing, all I can think is Nadia Comanic. Like, yes, yes, Gen X completely. You dedicate the book to New York Effin City. That's what I can say on the radio. What keeps you enamored or interested in this city?

[Colson Whitehead]

I think if I got it right, I would stop writing about it, but I haven't got it right yet. So my first book, the Intuitionist, is kind of allegorical New York Zone 1 is a post apocalyptic zombie New York, and that's kind of like utopian New York because everyone's dead, so there's no line at Whole Foods or to get a cab. And this is like a realistic depiction. So I keep trying different strategies and attacking the city in different ways and maybe one day I'll get it right.

[Alison Stewart]

With your next book, is it going to be set in New York?

[Colson Whitehead]

There's a couple of pages, but I don't want to do the whole New York book again. But it does start in New York City.

[Alison Stewart]

This was in this New Yorker article, and people have probably asked you about it, but I'm going to go ahead and ask anyway. On a bench at 93rd and Broadway, there's a plaque that reads Colson Whitehead's Office.

[Colson Whitehead]

So Broadway, Big Boulevard. There's a greenway in the middle and there are benches. Usually there's some decrepit character urinating or something in the benches. But definitely during the pandemic, I would sit and rest, get out of the house and sit on the bench near my neighborhood. And I talked about getting a bench that says Colson Whitehead's Office. Of course, I'm too lazy, so my wife did it for my birthday. And if you go to 93rd and Broadway, you can inhale the aroma of Colson Whitehead's office.

[Alison Stewart]

Get a Pinkberry right there.

[Colson Whitehead]

Yes, there's usually a dead pigeon or something there.

[Alison Stewart]

Is there something in this book that you want people to spend an extra five seconds thinking about? A reference, a scene something that you worked really hard on or you just are like, you really think nails it?

[Colson Whitehead]

No, I mean, I think at the end of the Uncle Rich section, the narrator is speckling about New York City mystics and people who are attuned to the city in a special way. They can see the grid behind the grid. And I think all of us have our secret New York that no one else can really see. And I think if I can share my weird New York with you, you can hopefully see yours in it as well. So there are different, a lot of different moments like that where I'm hoping I'm doing my job.

[Alison Stewart]

My guest has been Colson Whitehead. His new book is called Cool Machine. Colson has a book event with Garden State Author Talks in Montclair tonight and it's at Union Square Barnes and Noble on August 3rd. Thank you for coming into the studio.

[Colson Whitehead]

My pleasure.

[Alison Stewart]

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[Colson Whitehead]

I remember telling my boss it'll be

[Alison Stewart]

good for the brand when leads were slow.

[Colson Whitehead]

Yeah, it wasn't.

[Alison Stewart]

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