THE QUEEN OF HARLEM

Can a black southern preppie survive in Harlem?

Mason Randolph puts off entering Stanford Law School for a year and heads for Manhattan, where he spots an ad for a shared rental in a Harlem townhouse and beats out the competition when the very attractive owner favors him over the other applicants. Maybe it’s because he looks a little dangerous (but not too dangerous) in his twisted dreadlocks. Maybe it’s because he changed his first name to something slightly tougher, Malik, after the homies on the corner razzed him for acting like a Huxtable. He’s got a great place to stay; now all he needs is a job so he can buy himself some baggy jeans and a bubble coat and start earning some street creds. Not that he’s wants his overbearing mother to know he’s swilling malt liquor and living with an older woman. Fortunately, Carmen England, his elegant landlady, seems to know everyone worth knowing, including lots of artists and other louche types. Malik escorts Carmen to fascinatingly weird parties and in his spare time explores Harlem. He ventures as far as Columbia University, where he befriends law student Malcolm, whose struggling single mother dishes up food in the university cafeteria to pay for his tuition. Malcolm’s friend Kyra is sexy and sassy—and Malik knows her heart surgeon father isn’t going to be impressed by a good-for-nothing drifter with a worthless credit card. He can’t decide which story to tell, and gives away too many clues to his real identity. Some of his new friends are simply too amoral to care—reinventing yourself is what New York is all about, right? But Kyra does care, and so does Carmen, whom Malik has dubbed the Queen of Harlem—and who turns out to be an imposter herself.

From Jackson (The View From Here, 1996; Walking Through Mirrors, 1998): an intriguing and well-written look at the nature of identity, whatever the color.