Succeed2gether’s Montclair Literary Festival and Montclair Public Library’s Open Book/Open Mind series are delighted to welcome two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead to discuss the latest installment of his Harlem saga, Crook Manifesto, a hugely entertaining novel that summons 1970s New York in all its seedy glory. Colson will be live and in person on Saturday, September 23, at 4 p.m, in conversation with books editor of People magazine, Kate Tuttle.

Crook Manifesto is a darkly funny tale of a city under siege, but also a sneakily searching portrait of the meaning of family. Colson’s kaleidoscopic portrait of Harlem is sure to stand as one of the all-time great evocations of a place and a time.

“Whitehead continues his boisterous, incisive saga of late-20th-century Harlem and of a furniture dealer rarely keeping his criminal side at bay…The adventures of entrepreneur, family man, and sometime fence Ray Carney, which began with Harlem Shuffle (2021), are carried from the Black Citadel’s harried-but-hopeful 1960s of that book to the dismal-and-divided ’70s shown here…[Crook Manifesto] is not just crime fiction at its craftiest, but shrewdly rendered social history.”— Kirkus Reviews

Tickets to hear Colson Whitehead in person cost $35 and include one copy of the book Crook Manifesto (value $29). Books will be available to be picked up from Library and Festival partner watchung booksellers after the book’s publication on Tuesday, July 18, 2023. Signed books and bookplates will be available for collection at the event. Colson will NOT be signing books after the event. BUY TICKETS HERE.

This event will be held in The Sanctuary of the First Congregational Church, 40 South Fullerton Ave, Montclair, 07042. If you require any special accommodations to attend, please email montclairliteraryfestival@gmail.com before the event.

Colson Whitehead is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of eleven works of fiction and nonfiction, and is a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, for The Nickel Boys and The Underground Railroad, which also won the National Book Award. A recipient of MacArthur and Guggenheim fellowships, he lives in New York City. Photo credit © Chris Close.

Kate Tuttle is an executive editor at People magazine, covering books. A past president of the National Book Critics Circle, she formerly edited the books pages at the Boston Globe. Her reviews and essays have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, and elsewhere.

The Open Book / Open Mind series is presented by the Montclair Public Library with the generous support of The Montclair Public Library Foundation, Watchung Booksellers, Josh Weston, Rosemary Iversen, an anonymous donor, the First Congregational Church, Amanti Vino, and The George Montclair.

Succeed2gether’s Montclair Literary Festival organizing committee wishes to thank its primary festival partners – Montclair State University, Watchung Booksellers, Montclair Public Library – festival sponsors, event sponsors, our many community supporters and volunteers.

Any proceeds from this event will be shared by the Montclair Public Library and Montclair-based non-profit Succeed2gether, which offers free after-school one-on-one tutoring and enrichment classes with the aim of closing the education and opportunity gaps in Essex County, NJ.