A walker, a reader & a gazer, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts is also a skilled talker whose impromptu kerbside exchanges with Harlem`s most colourful residents are transmuted into a slippery, silky set of observations on what change & opportunity have wrought in this small corner of a big city, Harlem, with its outsize reputation & even-larger influence. Hers is a beguilingly well-written meditation on the essence of black Harlem, as it teeters on the brink of seeing its poorer residents & their rich histories turfed out by commercial developers intent on providing swish condos for cool-seeking (and mostly white) gentrifiers. In a mix of oral history, conversations with scholars & hobos, thoughtful musings on notable antecedents & illustrious Harlemites of the twentieth century, & her own story of migration (from Texas to Harlem via Harvard), Rhodes-Pitts exhibits a sensitivity & subtlety & stillness in her writing that is very impressive & very promising. There are echoes of Joan Didion`s distinctive rhythms & pauses in her prose, without it ever feeling derivative. This is an exceptionally striking & alluring debut.