Hunting In Harlem by Mat Johnson
By Keith Boykin, in books
Tuesday, June 3 2003, 10:21AM
The book of the month for June is Mat Johnson's sophomore literary effort, Hunting In Harlem. Billed as "an explosive look at a neighborhood under siege," Hunting In Harlem tells the story of Lester Baines's Horizon Realty Company as it attempts to gentrify Harlem with black professionals.
Walking through Harlem Sunday afternoon, I came across a crowd of spectators at 130th Street and Lenox Avenue. The police had cordoned off a 50-yard area with yellow tape and seemed to be inspecting a blue suitcase on the street between two cars.
Television crews were already starting to zoom their cameras from the perimeter of the police scene when I looked around and made a snap judgment about who to ask for information. I settled on an old woman standing nearby. "What happened?" "They found a dead body in the suitcase," she told me.
The incident took place at the entrance to the Astor Row homes on 130th Street. It's a single block of once beautiful southern style semi-detached homes that don't fit into the rest of the architecture of Harlem. I had walked down that street many times in years past, but I hadn't traveled the street recently at all.
I had planned to visit the block this week to verify a description of it from Mat Johnson's new book Hunting In Harlem. Strangely, the book tells the story of mysterious deaths of undesirables in Harlem after a black real estate company decides to beautify the neighborhood.
Was this suitcase homicide an example of life imitating art? Or the other way around? Join me this month in reading Hunting In Harlem and let's find out.
Hunting In Harlem is published by Bloomsbury Books.
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