The Sellout: A Novel, by Paul Beatty
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The Sellout: A Novel, by Paul Beatty
Read and Download Ebook The Sellout: A Novel, by Paul Beatty
Winner of the 2015 National Book Critics Circle Award in FictionNamed one of the best books of 2015 by The New York Times Book Review and the Wall Street Journal
A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality―the black Chinese restaurant.
Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens―on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles―the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: "I'd die in the same bedroom I'd grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that've been there since '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe that his father's pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family's financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that's left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral.
Fuelled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident―the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins―he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.
The Sellout: A Novel, by Paul Beatty - Amazon Sales Rank: #53608 in Books
- Brand: Beatty, Paul
- Published on: 2015-03-03
- Released on: 2015-03-03
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.58" h x 1.05" w x 5.70" l, 1.00 pounds
- Binding: Hardcover
- 304 pages
The Sellout: A Novel, by Paul Beatty Review
“The first 100 pages of [Paul Beatty's] new novel, The Sellout, are the most caustic and the most badass first 100 pages of an American novel I've read in at least a decade. I gave up underlining the killer bits because my arm began to hurt . . . [They] read like the most concussive monologues and interviews of Chris Rock, Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle wrapped in a satirical yet surprisingly delicate literary and historical sensibility . . . The jokes come up through your spleen . . . The riffs don't stop coming in this landmark and deeply aware comic novel . . . [It] puts you down in a place that's miles from where it picked you up.” ―Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“[The Sellout] is among the most important and difficult American novels written in the 21st century . . . It is a bruising novel that readers will likely never forget.” ―Kiese Laymon, Los Angeles Times
“Swiftian satire of the highest order . . . Giddy, scathing and dazzling.” ―Sam Sacks, The Wall Street Journal
“The Sellout isn't just one of the most hilarious American novels in years, it also might be the first truly great satirical novel of the century . . . [It] is a comic masterpiece, but it's much more than just that-it's one of the smartest and most honest reflections on race and identity in America in a very long time.” ―Michael Schaub, NPR.org
“Beatty, author of the deservedly highly praised The White Boy Shuffle (1996), here outdoes himself and possibly everybody else in a send-up of race, popular culture, and politics in today's America . . . Beatty hits on all cylinders in a darkly funny, dead-on-target, elegantly written satire . . . [The Sellout] is frequently laugh-out-loud funny and, in the way of the great ones, profoundly thought provoking. A major contribution.” ―Mark Levin, Booklist (starred review)
“The Sellout is brilliant. Amazing. Like demented angels wrote it.” ―Sarah Silverman
“I am glad that I read this insane book alone, with no one watching, because I fell apart with envy, hysterics, and flat-out awe. Is there a more fiercely brilliant and scathingly hilarious American novelist than Paul Beatty?” ―Ben Marcus
“Paul Beatty has always been one of smartest, funniest, gutsiest writers in America, but The Sellout sets a new standard. It's a spectacular explosion of comic daring, cultural provocation, brilliant, hilarious prose, and genuine heart.” ―Sam Lipsyte
About the Author Paul Beatty is the author of three novels―Slumberland, Tuff, and The White Boy Shuffle―and two books of poetry: Big Bank Take Little Bank and Joker, Joker, Deuce. He is the editor of Hokum: An Anthology of African-American Humor. He lives in New York City.
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98 of 104 people found the following review helpful. Bad timing for a satiric novel about racism, unless you're devastatingly good By Bartolo Who writes like this? I asked myself, having been overwhelmed with satiric jabs after about 25 densely written pages. Ishmael Reed? And then why compare Beatty only to another black writer? Was that racist? Woody Allen wrote this densely, stories full of caricatures and outrageous situations, but New-York-Jewish in subject, and then only a few pages long, not an entire novel. Surely Beatty couldn't keep it up.But by page 227 his comic inventions were still going strong. Here the protagonist converts the "long out-of-business brushless car wash" in his L.A. ghetto into a "tunnel of whiteness" for the local children, with "several race wash options:"Regular Whiteness: Benefit of the Doubt Higher Life Expectancy Lower Insurance PremiumsDeluxe Whiteness: Regular Whiteness Plus Warnings instead of Arrests from the Police Decent Seats at Concerts and Sporting Events World Revolves Around You and Your ConcernsSuper Deluxe Whiteness: Deluxe Whiteness Plus Jobs with Annual Bonuses Military Service Is for Suckers Legacy Admission to College of Your Choice Therapists That Listen Boats That You Never Use All Vices and Bad Habits Referred to as "Phases" Not Responsible for Scratches, Dents, and Items Left in the SubconsciousBy "dense," I mean that almost every sentence contains a comic explosion, a twist, something that leaves you breathless or laughing out loud. Who does that? I thought of Barry Hannah, a Southern writer now gone. I think Hannah would have admired Beatty and recognized a literary kinsman. Also, something about Beatty's writing seemed to come from African-American oratory, its ornateness maybe, like Stanley Crouch's writing about jazz, but it wasn't self-conscious. Certainly the point of view was uniquely African-American, and I'm sure as a white reader I missed some of the inside humor. But plenty hit home with me, and would with almost any other half-alert citizen of this great land.Speaking of which: this is a horrible time in our culture—with everyone's cell phones recording the underbelly of brutal racist policing, with political reactionaries running amok—to be attempting satire. It damn well better be funny. Beatty succeeds with a scenario that's not only side-splitting but right up to the minute. (I'm tempted to give more examples but will forbear) He's brilliant. (He's also profane and vulgar, as how could he not be? The n-word alone is used probably 1000 times)Chris Rock can be devastatingly funny sometimes. Key & Peele can be outrageously funny sometimes. Making a barb leap off the written page is harder. As one critic said: Beatty can reduce a sacred cow to hamburger with one sentence.
38 of 43 people found the following review helpful. The Longest Standup By David Valentino Beatty explores what it's like to be black in "postracial" America with searing, acerbic, ceaseless, absurdist humor, and by turning the tables on bigotry by having the main characters, Me (or Bonbon) and Hominy Jenkins bring back slavery and discrimination and argue for them before the Supreme Court.This is not a novel as most understand the form. It is more of a long standup routine that rains down on you for a couple of hours, comprised of riffs on films, culture, psychology, gangs, territories, education, and Me's passion, horticulture in an urban desert. The storyline, which surfaces for sustaining air periodically, is the one line from my opening, an apparently absurd idea that illustrates how absurd what engenders it really is.Okay, so what kind of reading experience is The Sellout: A Novel? The best way to describe it, apart from imagining yourself at a meeting of the Dum Dum Donut Intellectuals (founded by Me's psychologist father, deceased but impossible for Me to forget, gunned down by police in the street) in which Me finally arouses himself enough to fire off his riff, like the black comedian who brings life to the club on the cusp of its demise. Or, view a few Diego Rivera murals of culture, oppression, history, and revolution to get a sense of how the frequent digressions mesh to paint a picture. Or, reach further back into art history and study Hieronymus Bosch's famous triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, depicting the delights (what's beyond the barrio of Dickens) to the hell in places like Dickens. In short, a ton of stuff splattered on the wall, formed into tales, taken together to impart an impression.Now, it would be nice to quote from The Sellout, however, let's just say that the slang-slinging in Django Unchained [HD] might be tame by comparison. But wait. There is one part that might pass. That's the opening, which sets the tone of the book nicely:"This may be hard to believe, coming from a black man, but I've never stolen anything. Never cheated on my taxes or at cards. Never snuck into the movies or failed to give back the extra change to a drugstore cashier indifferent to the way of mercantilism and mimimim-wage expectations. I've never burgled a house. Held up a liquor store. Never boarded a crowded bus or subway car, sat in a seat reserved for the elderly, pulled out my gigantic penis and masturbated to satisfaction with a perverted, yet somehow crestfallen look on my face. But here I am, in the cavernous chambers the Supreme Court of the United States of America ..." and so it goes on, intensifying.Worth your time? Absolutely, if you'd like to make a little sense of times that seem to make no sense whatsoever.
24 of 26 people found the following review helpful. Here's how you should read this book By Sarah B Rather than copy the other very astute reviews, let me just tell you how to read this book. It's challenging, and it doesn't always follow the standard dictates of plot, but you may enjoy it more if you know what to expect.1) It's not a page-turning, finish-in-one-night kind of book. If you try, you'll miss out. I had to read it over several days, each session giving me a hundred things to think about.2) When you get anxious for the plot to pick up, think of it as satirical standup, and read it like you'd listen to the comics to which Beatty's compared, namely Dave Chapelle. (If you're thinking of it as a novel instead of as satire, you can lose the thread of hilarity) When you're overwhelmed by the satire, think of it as a novel and try to piece together the experiences that make up Bonbon's character. It's hard to get hold of his character at times, and trying to summarize Bonbon Me's character is a (rewarding) reading experience in and of itself.3) You may want to have google at hand so you don't miss out on the plethora (this word is on my mind after one particularly funny bit near the end), of cultural and historical references. You might know Plessy v. Ferguson and the scopes trial, but it would be hard, I think, to catch every reference, and the satire depends on them.4) Yes, it's funny, but not in the LOL way as often as 'that so true it's painful' way. Reading the reviews, I expected to be chuckling every few pages. Instead I had a wry grin every few sentences. Don't let this deter you. The verbs come at the end of sentences so often that you really have to read it at a run if you don't want to lose the thread of what's going on, but I can guarantee the thread is worth catching. In the last few pages of the book, Beatty comes as close to speaking to you plainly as the author as he does in the entire novel, and what he had to say tied the its many disparate observations together perfectly.
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