Cool Machine by Colson Whitehead: A triumph of molls, dolls and deadpan humour

After any chapter of Colson Whitehead’s Harlem Trilogy, I feel as though I am reading a particularly operatic story by Damon Runyon, complete with molls, dolls and Broadway-laden side-eyes. It is the kind of widescreen social drama that immediately reads like a screenplay. With pitch-perfect colloquialisms and deadpan humour, these books tell the story of Ray Carney, a furniture salesman striving to provide a stable, respectable life for his wife, Elizabeth, and their children.