the last book I ever read A Rage in Harlem: A Harlem Detectives Novel by Chester Himes, excerpt nine)

from A Rage in Harlem (Harlem Detectives Series Book 1) by Chester Himes:

Looking eastward from the towers of Riverside Church, perched among the university buildings on the high banks of the Hudson River, in a valley far below, waves of gray rooftops distort the perspective like the surface of a sea. Below the surface, in the murky waters of fetid tenements, a city of black people who are convulsed in desperate living, like the voracious churning of millions of hungry cannibal fish. Blind mouths eating their own guts. Stick in a hand and draw back a nub.

That is Harlem.