Colson Whitehead's last addition to the Harlem Trilogy, Cool Machine, was released in July 2026 and revisits Ray Carney in 1980s New York City.

With a name like Ray Carney, you'd be forgiven for thinking they might be Irish, but author Colson Whitehead has now clarified if that's the case or not.

The two-time Pulitzer fiction prize winner is likely best known for the novel The Underground Railroad, which depicted a fictional account of the route American slaves took to freedom.

He also saw his novel The Nickel Boys be turned into a movie in 2024 and earned two Academy Award nominations for Best Adapted Screenplay and Best Picture.

When speaking on The Pat Kenny Show, the host asked Whitehead if there was any Irish connection to Ray Carney, who is the main character of the writer's Harlem Trilogy (Harlem Shuffle, Crook Manifesto and his latest work, Cool Machine).

Whitehead clarified that there was no Irish inspiration behind the character name, and even though people might assume from the name that he's a white man, he's actually black.

He said: "I think probably some black Irish from right here. But, I wanted a single syllable and then two syllables, and I was thinking Art Carney is a cool name, and then Ray Carney, and so that's the origin."

However, while Carney might not be an Irish character, there are some similarities that can be made between the Harlem Trilogy and the likes of James Joyce's Ulysses. 

When going on his first overseas holiday, Whitehead took both Ulysses and The Odyssey with him, calling the Joyce tale "a great master text" for someone who loves to write about cities.

"The same way that Stephen [Dedaldus] and [Leopold] Bloom are walking through the city, processing it and projecting their consciousness onto the city, so is Ray Kearney.

"And so both those novels are great walking novels; people who love the cities and are sort of contemplating who they are and the city around them."

Whitehead’s final addition to the Harlem Trilogy, Cool Machine, was released in July, 2026, and is set in New York City in the 1980s, when real estate development, homelessness, and crime rates were all at a high.

The story centres on the aforementioned Ray Carney, a successful furniture store owner who also lives a double life as a part-time criminal fence, aka someone who buys and sells stolen goods.

Main image: the cover of Colson Whitehead's latest novel, Cool Machine Picture by: Penguin Random House