Harlem Redux: A Mystery of the Harlem Renaissance

Harlem Redux has a wonderful cast of characters. I hope to over time build a lens for each one. In the meantime, here are brief descriptions:

David McKay, 35, scion of an affluent family on Strivers' Row, a criminal defense and civil rights attorney, older brother to twin sisters Lilian and Gem. In 1923, David, was sent South to investigate a lynching. When he did not return, he was presumed now. As our story opens, it is three years later. He has just received word of Lilian's suicide.

Rachel Hamilton, 28, a nurse and childhood friend of David,, Lilian, and Gem. Rachel grew up in poverty. She knew the McKays before they became wealthy and moved to Strivers' Row. David McKay, is the love of her life. She would risk anything, do anything to be with him.

Lilian McKay, 30, a writer and teacher. As beautiful as her glamorous twin sister, Lilian is serious, studious, conservative and socially responsible. All the more reason for David to be stunned at her sudden decision to marry a stranger and months later, die at her own hand.

Gem McKay, 30, a wild child, the sister who went to Paris and did it all. Gem is a party girl, clever, ruthless, and utterly self-centered. She loves dangerous men and dangerous money.

Jameson Sweet, 36, a smart man born poor who worked his way up to become one of the Movement's most talented attorneys -- and Lilian's mysterious husband.

Byron Canfield, 63, a regal, scholarly intellectual, and one of the leading minds behind the Movement for Negro civil rights advancement. This man's cold intellect will soon place him at odds with David.

Nella Harding, 3. A powerful New York socialite used to having her way, she's a highly respected columnist, who befriended Gem, and now has her lustful gaze set on David.

Adrian Snyder, 45, a leading figure in Harlem's world of organized crime, he met his match in Gem.

Harlem Redux is a many-tiered story with layers of mystery after mystery. The most obvious question, the one that concerns David is why?

- Why did his calm, sensible sister slash her own wrists?
- Why did she marry Jameson Sweet and do it so quickly?
- Why did his other sister, Gem, suddenly return home from Paris, and
- Why did she then leave again just as suddenly?

In trying to answer these questions, David uncovers a host of others. Meanwhile, of course, he himself must dodge of volley of questions.

He was presumed dead when he failed to return those long three years ago. Why didn't he come back? Where has he been? And what unforgivable sin has he committed that he's desperate to keep hidden?

Last, but not least, Harlem Redux is also a story about identity. The characters shift, revealing new sides, and beckon with new secrets. Who is Annie, the faithful housekeeper? Who is she, really? What is behind her years of loyalty?

Everyone in this Harlem Renaissance story wears a mask. It will keep you turning the pages until the very last mask is ripped away.

Harlem Redux tells the story of three romances:

David McKay and Rachel Hamilton: They met as children, when both of their families were poor and life was simple. Then his family became rich and moved away. Still, she went to visit him, knowing, never really daring to hope that he would love her, too.

Lilian McKay and Jameson Sweet: A lonely woman with a social conscience marries a man she barely knows, and learns the truth about him, about her, about their feelings for one another, much too late.

Augustus and Lilian McKay: David's parents had everything any couple could have wanted. They had money, stature, connections, a beautiful home and lovely children. They had everything but each other. The story of Augustus and Lilian McKay is one of compulsive adultery, humiliation, and contempt.

Page 69 yields a snatch of conversation in which Nella Harding displays a dangerous interest in David McKay, a man with a secret.

Nella's eyes moved over him intensely, as though if she tried hard enough she could see right through him. "You've ot a story, dear boy, and I want to know it."

"You're mistaken."

She eyed him shrewdly. "Smart of you to leave tomorrow."

"Why?"

"Because if you stayed, Canfield would unearth every detail he could about you. And so would I."

His heart thumped heavily, but his eyes stayed easy. "It would be a waste of your time."

"A murder mystery set among the black bourgeoisie, it is also the heady tale of a bygone era ... compelling family intrigue and a full, vibrant portrait of that storied era when Harlem's pulse was the rhythm of black America." -The Boston Globe

"McKay emerges as a resolute yet flawed protagonist, trying to restore his family's honor while pursuing an elusive and perhaps nonexistent killer." -St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"As much a story of lies, deceit and murder as it is a commentary on race and class, Harlem Redux is filled with colorful characters." -Chicago Tribune

"Sexy." New York Daily News

"A rich, thoroughly enjoyable tale of greed and deceit, passion and betrayal." -April Christofferson, author of The Protocol and Clinical Trial

"Exotic locales, an odd supporting cast, worthy subplots, and a baffling set of clues." -Publishers Weekly

"Good historical fun ... impeccable scenery." -Kirkus Reviews

"Harlem Redux has so may twists, turns and elaborate subplots it reminds you of an old Alfred Hitchcock thriller. It is like a house of cards; each secret you unravel brings you one step closer to solving the mystery and bringing down the house." Read more.
--Ruby, APOOO Book Club

"An engaging and intoxicating mystery ... "Harlem Redux addresses disputes among African Americans and between African Americans and Caucasians. We get a history lesson and an eclectic view of Harlem in the 1920s. Inner-racial prejudice and racial division are skirted, but the big issue is WHO DID IT? You'll enjoy the ride as David pounds the pavement and browbeats everyone available. He is determined to get the truth about his sister's death."
--KaTrina Love

"I bought this book for a friend who was recovering from surgery. She literally forgot to take her pain pills as she was so engrossed in this book."
--Cheryl Willis

Internal prejudice: Harlem Redux touches upon racial prejudice within the African American community of the 1920s. Rachel Hamilton is beautiful, but she is dark-skinned. She never expected to be treated well by whites, but she is often heartbroken and furious at the derogatory way she is treated by her own people.

Class prejudice: David's father is an accomplished, wealthy, light-skinned African-American. He wants Rachel around, but only so he can demonstrate his sensitivity toward the have-nots. He would never accept her as his daughter-in-law and lets her know it.

Interracial friendships: In David's world, African-Americans, whites and West Indians don't mix. To survive his return to Harlem, he will have to rethink that philosophy.

Passing: Everyone wears a mask, David's friend Cora says. Sometimes that's what you have to do in order to survive.

1. Harlem Redux explores the loneliness of self-exile, the tension between the issues that drive one away and the yearning to return home. Both David and Gem were in self-imposed exile and both were driven back by circumstances. What inner pressures made them to away to begin with? What kept them away? And how different might their lives have been if they'd found the strength to return home before crises forced them to?

2. Augustus McKay was a successful man who thunderously demanded that his children accomplish 'great things.' He meant for Lilian, Gem and David to be strong, but his powerful ambition threatened to wear them down. When does a parent's dreams for his or her children become a destructive force? Was Augustus's influence totally negative, in fact, or did it bear positive fruit?

3. David's upbringing taught him to automatically distrust people such as Nella Harding and Adrian Snyder, but these two turned out to be his stalwart supporters. What is Walker trying to say about prejudice and friendships in unexpected places?

4. It's no accident that Nella wants to name her new book, "Duplicity." How do the characters in Harlem Redux lie or hide their true identities? Is there anyone in the story who is honest about who he or she is?

5. To be so light-skinned, David must have had some white ancestry. Yet he was expected to declare himself as simply black. How much have attitudes changed? Should those who are multiethnic be expected to identify with only one part of their heritage? And why?

Jacket Painting by Archibald J. Motley Jr. "Blues" 1929, Oil on canvas, 80 x 100.3 cm Collection of Archie Motley & Valerie Gerrard Browne © Archie Motley

Motley's Blues has become a favorite for publishers and writers, gracing many a book cover. It immediately evokes the creative energy and social milieu that characterized the Harlem Renaissance.

Blue was set in the Parisian "Black and Tan" Club, which was frequented by blacks from South Africa, the Caribbean and the United States. As Paul Gilroy, writing in Rhapsodies in Black: Art of the Harlem Renaissance, states:

"Motley's dense composition of cabaret patrons, wine bottles, musicians, instruments, and seemingly disembodied arms and legs all add up to a pictorial gumbo of black creativity: a painted space where musical layering and sexual partnering parallel a fractured, cubistic approach to art and representation."

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From Wikipedia:

Archibald John Motley, Junior (October 7, 1891, New Orleans, Louisiana - January 16, 1981, Chicago, Illinois) was an African-American painter, and on occasion, sculptor. He studied painting at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago during the 1910s, graduating in 1914. He is most famous for his colorful chronicling of the African-American experience during the 1920s and 1930s, and is considered one of the major contributors to the Harlem Renaissance.

Unlike many other Harlem Renaissance artists, Archibald Motley, Jr. never lived in Harlem--he was born in New Orleans and spent the majority of his life in Chicago. His was the only black family in a fairly affluent, white, European neighborhood. Read more at Wikipedia.