Discussed in this essay:

Crook Manifesto, by Colson Whitehead. Doubleday. 336 pages. $29.

Ray Carney, the protagonist of Colson Whitehead’s new novel Crook Manifesto, is a Harlem furniture-store owner and family man. He wants to keep his head down and thrive, but finds it “impossible to play along like everyone else. To pretend that what they meant by freedom was the same thing he meant. As ever, he didn’t fit the templates.” In the words of the narrator, Carney is “just another schlubby shopkeeper getting leaned on.” Or in the even less generous…