Harlem is a small corner of a big city, with an outsize reputation and even-larger influence. Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts arrived there in 2002, and began engaging Harlem's most colourful residents in impromptu kerbside exchanges, seeking to map the changes that were transforming her new neighbourhood. The result is a beguilingly well-written meditation on the essence of black Harlem, as it teeters on the brink of seeing its poorer residents and their rich histories turfed out by commercial developers intent on providing swish condos for cool-seeking (and mostly white) gentrifiers. Combining a mix of conversations with scholars and streetcorner men, thoughtful musings on notable antecedents and illustrious Harlemites of the twentieth century, and Rhodes-Pitts's own story of migration (from Texas to Harlem via Harvard), this is an exceptionally striking debut.