The Sellout by Paul Beatty
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Sellout is hard to describe, but easy to recommend. It’s a little like crashing someone else’s party. Or a bit like laughing at a joke the moment before you realize the joke was actually an indictment. It’s an outrageous, entertaining, jam-packed story that satirizes the progress of race relations in modern-day America. I think of it as a literary Bamboozled that digs deeper into the protagonist’s psyche and foibles.
On one level, the story of one man’s attempt to return home. On another, a skewering of sacred cows left and right. It feels like a picaresque even if our narrator doesn’t exactly leave his neighborhood. It is a journey. I laughed, I cringed, I was entertained, and I believe this is a story that will linger in my mind for a long time.