The Sellout
by Paul Beatty
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"Raised in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens--improbably smack in the middle of downtown L.A.--the narrator of The Sellout resigned himself to the fate of all other middle-class Californians: "to die in the same bedroom you'd grown up in, looking up at the crack in the stucco ceiling that had been there since '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist at Riverside Community College, he spent his childhood as the subject in psychological studies, classic experiments show more revised to include a racially-charged twist. He also grew up believing this pioneering work might result in a memoir that would solve their financial woes. But when his father is killed in a shoot out with the police, he realizes there never was a memoir. All that's left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral and some maudlin what-ifs. Fuelled by this injustice and the general disrepair of his down-trodden hometown, he sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California further embarrassment. Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident--the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins, our narrator initiates a course of action--one that includes reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school--destined to bring national attention. These outrageous events land him with a law suit heard by the Supreme Court, the latest in a series of cases revolving around the thorny issue of race in America. The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game. It challenges the most sacred tenets of the U.S. Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality--the black Chinese restaurant"-- "A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court"-- show lessTags
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The Sellout opens with Me, a black man who has inherited an urban farm in a southeastern suburb of Los Angeles, sitting before the Supreme Court. He has been prosecuted for being a slave owner and trying to segregate the community schools in an attempt to literally put his hometown of Dickens back on the map. While he waits for his case—Me v. the United States of America, sort of a modern-day contrast to Plessy v. Ferguson—to be called, he passes the time by smoking some of the artisanal marijuana that he and Hominy Jenkins, his self-anointed slave and former Little Rascals sidekick, grow alongside their watermelons. The rest of the novel then provides the backfill story of how Me came to find himself in such a position, beginning show more with his upbringing by a psychologist father with some unusual parenting techniques to his emergence as a reluctant social activist for a largely apathetic population.
Does this sound like the outline of some kind of bizarre update of To Kill a Mockingbird? Well, it is hardly that. Instead, The Sellout is a wildly comical satire on the fractured state of race relations today, one of the most deadly serious topics I can imagine. Paul Beatty does a remarkable job of filling the tale with a dizzying number of historical and cultural references while taking absolutely no prisoners when examining the stereotypes and hypocrisies that exist on all sides of the issue. Along the way, the reader is treated to many laugh-out-loud scenes while being exposed to more creative uses of the n-word (and, trust me, there are a lot of them) than you would think possible. Although its underlying plot is a little thin, this is a book that delivers a powerful message. It is also a novel that really could only have been written by an author who is (1) black, (2) deeply insightful, and (3) hysterically funny. Fortunately, Beatty is all of those things. show less
Does this sound like the outline of some kind of bizarre update of To Kill a Mockingbird? Well, it is hardly that. Instead, The Sellout is a wildly comical satire on the fractured state of race relations today, one of the most deadly serious topics I can imagine. Paul Beatty does a remarkable job of filling the tale with a dizzying number of historical and cultural references while taking absolutely no prisoners when examining the stereotypes and hypocrisies that exist on all sides of the issue. Along the way, the reader is treated to many laugh-out-loud scenes while being exposed to more creative uses of the n-word (and, trust me, there are a lot of them) than you would think possible. Although its underlying plot is a little thin, this is a book that delivers a powerful message. It is also a novel that really could only have been written by an author who is (1) black, (2) deeply insightful, and (3) hysterically funny. Fortunately, Beatty is all of those things. show less
Not for the faint of heart. First time reading Paul Beatty and what got me into this novel was the insane premise and the fact that for an interview about the book Beatty said something like: This is not a work of fiction it is all true.
Anyway Paul Beatty has written here a scathing satire of America and race relations between blacks and all other colors. The Sellout is totally twisted and irreverent and funny. The book is written so damn well too: it is funny and reads really quick and just does not hold back anywhere at all. The message is very clear: America is broken lets make fun of it its not funny. The book is also not easy to read. The sellout is scathing but also heavy. The things that Beatty writes about seems effortless but show more if you are a nonwhite person in america you will know you will just know that this book is all at once all the things: satire, funny, scathing - but it is also like Beatty said it is non-fiction.
The main character is an urban farmer in Los Angeles and after his father is killed by the police during a traffic stop, the protagonist embarks on a controversial social experiment of his own, and ends up before the Supreme Court. He becomes a slave owner to a willing volunteer, an elderly man named Hominy Jenkins who once played understudy to Buckwheat on “The Little Rascals,” and seeks to reinstate segregation in a local school.
This is the only devastatingly sad and funny satire I have ever read. All parts Twain-Chappelle-Rock-Pryor-and of course Beatty. show less
Anyway Paul Beatty has written here a scathing satire of America and race relations between blacks and all other colors. The Sellout is totally twisted and irreverent and funny. The book is written so damn well too: it is funny and reads really quick and just does not hold back anywhere at all. The message is very clear: America is broken lets make fun of it its not funny. The book is also not easy to read. The sellout is scathing but also heavy. The things that Beatty writes about seems effortless but show more if you are a nonwhite person in america you will know you will just know that this book is all at once all the things: satire, funny, scathing - but it is also like Beatty said it is non-fiction.
The main character is an urban farmer in Los Angeles and after his father is killed by the police during a traffic stop, the protagonist embarks on a controversial social experiment of his own, and ends up before the Supreme Court. He becomes a slave owner to a willing volunteer, an elderly man named Hominy Jenkins who once played understudy to Buckwheat on “The Little Rascals,” and seeks to reinstate segregation in a local school.
This is the only devastatingly sad and funny satire I have ever read. All parts Twain-Chappelle-Rock-Pryor-and of course Beatty. show less
The Sellout, by Paul Beatty, is an African-American novel of satire on race relations in the United States. The story is told by an unnamed, black narrator who is coming before the Supreme Court on charges of slave holding and re-instituting segregation. The narrator recounts to the Supreme Court the events that brought him to the present time.
Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens - on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles - the narrator 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 have been there since '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially show more 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.
Fueled 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.
After a while the novel began, for this reader, to become extremely tiresome to the point of utter splenetic prose. What plot there was lacked sufficient direction and a sense of purpose. This resulted from repetition of a few basic themes established very early on. At times it even felt like it had degenerated into a series of loosely connected rants and personal grievances in the form of chapters. It became a very trying read.
The writing began with a certain authority; it was compelling and convincing, however as the narrative progressed it did not pick up any momentum but lingered on similar ideas and stayed very stationary. Some of the comic moments seemed forced as the narrator repeated themes over and again. The Sellout won The Man Booker Prize in 2016 and despite my acherontic experience reading the book I can see why. It is a very timely piece, addressing many of the problems blacks face in a country that has supposedly moved on from its original sin of slavery. Segregation has ended, racism is officially at an all-time low, but the issues remain.
That’s more-or-less the story, but for this reader the best aspect of The Sellout is Beatty’s language, sentence-by-sentence, even word-by-word, instead of the plot. There are literally hundreds of puns, non-sequiturs, and squeaky analogies, sometimes literally piled up on top of one another: “These are the times that fry one’s souls.” “Forty acres and a fool.” In spite of that, the satirical style in which it was told offset much of what the book attempted to do. The satire in this novel is savage and the black idiom is difficult to follow for someone unfamiliar with it. I can only recommend this novel to those readers who are ready for a difficult reading experience that may or may not be worth the trip. It was not for me. show less
Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens - on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles - the narrator 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 have been there since '68 quake." Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially show more 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.
Fueled 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.
After a while the novel began, for this reader, to become extremely tiresome to the point of utter splenetic prose. What plot there was lacked sufficient direction and a sense of purpose. This resulted from repetition of a few basic themes established very early on. At times it even felt like it had degenerated into a series of loosely connected rants and personal grievances in the form of chapters. It became a very trying read.
The writing began with a certain authority; it was compelling and convincing, however as the narrative progressed it did not pick up any momentum but lingered on similar ideas and stayed very stationary. Some of the comic moments seemed forced as the narrator repeated themes over and again. The Sellout won The Man Booker Prize in 2016 and despite my acherontic experience reading the book I can see why. It is a very timely piece, addressing many of the problems blacks face in a country that has supposedly moved on from its original sin of slavery. Segregation has ended, racism is officially at an all-time low, but the issues remain.
That’s more-or-less the story, but for this reader the best aspect of The Sellout is Beatty’s language, sentence-by-sentence, even word-by-word, instead of the plot. There are literally hundreds of puns, non-sequiturs, and squeaky analogies, sometimes literally piled up on top of one another: “These are the times that fry one’s souls.” “Forty acres and a fool.” In spite of that, the satirical style in which it was told offset much of what the book attempted to do. The satire in this novel is savage and the black idiom is difficult to follow for someone unfamiliar with it. I can only recommend this novel to those readers who are ready for a difficult reading experience that may or may not be worth the trip. It was not for me. show less
Paul Beatty not only has the unmitigated blackness to write essay disguised as fiction, he even has the unmitigated blackness to indicate he did so in a section entitled Unmitigated Blackness. I had already read other reviews complaining about its not being a real novel, and it certainly isn't when judged by the standards which the literary establishment (which, like all establishments, is unacknowledged invisible White by default) but to level this charge would be like saying Rap isn't music, Ebonics isn't a language, gay marriage isn't marriage, and of course there are those who say all those things.
It is a post-racial novel, not in the sense that racism is over, but in the sense that post-modernism lives alongside of modernism show more lowering the property values. Halfway through reading it, I thought that the author would appreciate it if I rated it with an extra star for Affirmative Action, but then at the end, when the White couple is thrown out of the Black comedy performance, I took it personally even as I understood the point-- that segregation can be a positive value when it creates a more comfortable atmosphere allowing for the non-default group to excel.
I did NOT take it personally when Bonbon's father was shot by the LA police because unarmed Black people being shot is a cliche. Was I supposed to feel something? Is it a failure of the writing to involve me emotionally? Or is what I was supposed to feel exactly what I did feel--that being the lack while noticing it? It explains why we have to be reminded that Black lives matter, not because we've forgotten that it's so but because we've forgotten to feel anything in its everydayness.
I like to think of this as a work of social-science-fiction, with the attendant characterization weaknesses of the sci-fi genre which we overlook because the ideas captivate us.
If sometimes the sadomasochism jokes were too much for me, I suspect this is a matter of taste--I tend to prefer not to use hot sauce as is my cultural proclivity.
The question this book asks is tossed off as a one liner "What is our thing?" "Cosa Nostra" in Italian, so "Gangsta" in Blackitude? Does "post-racialism" mean our thing has been appropriated?
If racism is difficult to talk about this book must have been difficult to write, but it's so easy to read. show less
It is a post-racial novel, not in the sense that racism is over, but in the sense that post-modernism lives alongside of modernism show more lowering the property values. Halfway through reading it, I thought that the author would appreciate it if I rated it with an extra star for Affirmative Action, but then at the end, when the White couple is thrown out of the Black comedy performance, I took it personally even as I understood the point-- that segregation can be a positive value when it creates a more comfortable atmosphere allowing for the non-default group to excel.
I did NOT take it personally when Bonbon's father was shot by the LA police because unarmed Black people being shot is a cliche. Was I supposed to feel something? Is it a failure of the writing to involve me emotionally? Or is what I was supposed to feel exactly what I did feel--that being the lack while noticing it? It explains why we have to be reminded that Black lives matter, not because we've forgotten that it's so but because we've forgotten to feel anything in its everydayness.
I like to think of this as a work of social-science-fiction, with the attendant characterization weaknesses of the sci-fi genre which we overlook because the ideas captivate us.
If sometimes the sadomasochism jokes were too much for me, I suspect this is a matter of taste--I tend to prefer not to use hot sauce as is my cultural proclivity.
The question this book asks is tossed off as a one liner "What is our thing?" "Cosa Nostra" in Italian, so "Gangsta" in Blackitude? Does "post-racialism" mean our thing has been appropriated?
If racism is difficult to talk about this book must have been difficult to write, but it's so easy to read. show less
A second read, I'd raise the rating to 6 stars were it possible. Driven by a racial theme, Beatty shows his skill at parody. I doubt there's another contemporary story about a guy who's home-schooled by an unorthodox psychologist father in a South Los Angeles 'agricultural district' where farming is popular. Having grown up in So CA I busted out laughing the FIRST time I read it! Characters include Hominy, a former black "Our Gang" understudy who prefers being a slave, a former girlfriend turned bus driver, school teachers and cops; the countless plot elements make for a laugh out loud romp! Adding the Dum Dum Donuts Intellectual Club and a public transit bus trip that ends up on a beach in addition to countless other scenes, its the show more kind of book that has you shaking your head in wonder. Whether you're a fan of parody or not, this is HIGHLY recommended regardless of your preferred genre. show less
The opening of Paul Beatty's "The Sellout" could be the most shocking beginning for a novel I have ever read, or am likely to read. I started laughing -- out-loud --from the get-go and didn't finish until 288 pages later. He gives me passages as funny as some of the best in John Barth's "The Sot-Weed Factor," Sterne's "Tristram Shandy," "Candide," "The Yawning Heights" by Alexander Zinoviev, even the greatest of them all, Cervantes' "Don Quixote."
It is so shocking partially because of the language, as bald and brash as the toughest rap, and flying across conventions of polite society like black fly season in Northern Ontario. It stings and it really hurts.
Beatty's anti-hero, variously called Bon-Bon, Me, and "The Sellout" is like a show more blackface Thomas Jefferson in modern-day Los Angeles: a farmer, a slave-owner, and an erudite provocateur. A true Californian proud of his sweet fruit. And hilariously proud of his genetically-modified watermellons. I told you it stings!
Angry that the County of Los Angeles has amalgamated his neighbourhood, Dickens, he sets on a path of renewal by reintroducing segregation into the American way of life. Really apartheid. And his plans succeed when poor black youth show growing school test scores and neighbourhood institutions show a revival.
I can tell you from first hand experience that Americans do not like to think of their great political experiment as a failure. Beatty shoves it in their faces.
Given the current turn of events in the US Government, Beatty's contention that integration doesn't work, that white Americans don't like Mexicans, Asians, Aboriginal Americans any more than black Americans rings true. Especially that so many white Americans count themselves at the bottom of the body politic.
Integration never sufficiently answered the biggest questions asked of a contemporary black American: who am I? How do I become myself?
Not just questions for black Americans, or Angelenos. Great questions for us all.
If a certain sadness pervades the novel, it could almost be read as a requiem for the Obama years where so much anticipation was built up only to be deflated by an intransigent Republican Congress. show less
It is so shocking partially because of the language, as bald and brash as the toughest rap, and flying across conventions of polite society like black fly season in Northern Ontario. It stings and it really hurts.
Beatty's anti-hero, variously called Bon-Bon, Me, and "The Sellout" is like a show more blackface Thomas Jefferson in modern-day Los Angeles: a farmer, a slave-owner, and an erudite provocateur. A true Californian proud of his sweet fruit. And hilariously proud of his genetically-modified watermellons. I told you it stings!
Angry that the County of Los Angeles has amalgamated his neighbourhood, Dickens, he sets on a path of renewal by reintroducing segregation into the American way of life. Really apartheid. And his plans succeed when poor black youth show growing school test scores and neighbourhood institutions show a revival.
I can tell you from first hand experience that Americans do not like to think of their great political experiment as a failure. Beatty shoves it in their faces.
Given the current turn of events in the US Government, Beatty's contention that integration doesn't work, that white Americans don't like Mexicans, Asians, Aboriginal Americans any more than black Americans rings true. Especially that so many white Americans count themselves at the bottom of the body politic.
Integration never sufficiently answered the biggest questions asked of a contemporary black American: who am I? How do I become myself?
Not just questions for black Americans, or Angelenos. Great questions for us all.
If a certain sadness pervades the novel, it could almost be read as a requiem for the Obama years where so much anticipation was built up only to be deflated by an intransigent Republican Congress. show less
Reading The Sellout is like taking an extended ride on a tilt-a-whirl.
The Tilt-A-Whirl™: definition: "a large segmented undulating spinning platform with 7 vehicles spread over the surface. Each vehicle spins on its own axis and depending on the weight location of each guest, every thrilling ride is unique."
I, for one, have ever been a fan of the roller coaster and tilt-a-whirl. As you tumble around the air, effortlessly and seemingly without being subjected to the laws of gravity -- and absolutely no point of reference -- you feel like you are spinning through the tunnels of time, as the universe spits you out and you are born anew. You land on Planet Earth still dizzy from the experience, and a little bit wobbly, but glad to be on show more solid ground, finally. Whew!
Beatty's superb novel addressing racism in America is very much like this experience. It is filled with relentless and biting satire that shakes your sense of gravity and leaves you more than a little wobbly as you exit.
It is an amazing knock to America's racial solar plexus, especially given the current events: every time you catch a glimpse of the news, there's another slam to the pscyhe. "Race relations" is just another expression for living in a very ugly, very dysfunctional family, where people don't love you, but damned if they'll let you go and live your own life, on your own terms. I'm amazed, in fact, that the lid hasn't blown off into outer space and that the country continues to function, more or less peacefully.
The one minor difficulty that I see in the work is that it is replete with inside references that the rest of the world just won't understand, and so if it is a mechanism for opening the dialogue between races, as some have suggested, then it has its limitations. (Without a point of reference, there's nowhere to begin.)
On the other hand, as a stand-alone voice that delivers an imaginative poetry of protest; of challenge and of grievance; of confrontation and reproach -- without all the fireworks -- it is superb.
This is a one-man literary peace march delivered in elegiac style, imbued with moments of gut-splitting humour and dirge-like dysphoria: like the spirits of Richard Pryor and Martin Luther King Jr. coming together to deliver a eulogy. show less
The Tilt-A-Whirl™: definition: "a large segmented undulating spinning platform with 7 vehicles spread over the surface. Each vehicle spins on its own axis and depending on the weight location of each guest, every thrilling ride is unique."
I, for one, have ever been a fan of the roller coaster and tilt-a-whirl. As you tumble around the air, effortlessly and seemingly without being subjected to the laws of gravity -- and absolutely no point of reference -- you feel like you are spinning through the tunnels of time, as the universe spits you out and you are born anew. You land on Planet Earth still dizzy from the experience, and a little bit wobbly, but glad to be on show more solid ground, finally. Whew!
Beatty's superb novel addressing racism in America is very much like this experience. It is filled with relentless and biting satire that shakes your sense of gravity and leaves you more than a little wobbly as you exit.
It is an amazing knock to America's racial solar plexus, especially given the current events: every time you catch a glimpse of the news, there's another slam to the pscyhe. "Race relations" is just another expression for living in a very ugly, very dysfunctional family, where people don't love you, but damned if they'll let you go and live your own life, on your own terms. I'm amazed, in fact, that the lid hasn't blown off into outer space and that the country continues to function, more or less peacefully.
The one minor difficulty that I see in the work is that it is replete with inside references that the rest of the world just won't understand, and so if it is a mechanism for opening the dialogue between races, as some have suggested, then it has its limitations. (Without a point of reference, there's nowhere to begin.)
On the other hand, as a stand-alone voice that delivers an imaginative poetry of protest; of challenge and of grievance; of confrontation and reproach -- without all the fireworks -- it is superb.
This is a one-man literary peace march delivered in elegiac style, imbued with moments of gut-splitting humour and dirge-like dysphoria: like the spirits of Richard Pryor and Martin Luther King Jr. coming together to deliver a eulogy. show less
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ThingScore 100
“The book deals with gentrification, police violence, and racism. But Beatty didn’t need a crystal ball for his biting satire.”
added by Lemeritus
added by private library
But somehow, 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.
added by Capybara_99
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- Canonical title
- The Sellout
- Original title
- The Sellout
- Original publication date
- 2015-03-03
- People/Characters
- "Bonbon" Me; Foy Cheshire; Hominy Jenkins; Hampton Fiske; Murray Flores; Bridget "La Giggles" Sanchez (show all 35); Marpessa Delissa Dawson; Tasha [in The Sellout]; Mistress Dorothy; King Cuz (Curtis Baxter); Officer Mendez; Laura Jane; Susan Silverman; Charisma Molina; Nestor Lopez; Sheila Clark; Clyde; Stevie Dawson; Lori Lopez; Dori Lopez; Jerry Lopez; Charlie Lopez; Billy Lopez; Kristina Davis; Butterfly Davis; Suzy Holland; Hannah Nater; Robby Haley; Keagan Goodrich; Melonie Vanderweghe; Judge Nguyen; Fred Manne; Adam Y; Chantal Mattingly; Me's Father
- Important places
- Dickens, California, USA; Los Angeles, California, USA; California, USA; United States of America; Washington, D.C., USA; Mississippi, USA
- Dedication
- For Althea Amrik Wasow
- First words
- 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 indiffere... (show all)nt to the ways of mercantilism and minimum wage expectations. I've never burgled a house. Held up a liquor store. Never boarded a crowded bus or subway car, sat in the middle 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 of the Supreme Court of the United States of America, my car illegally and somewhat ironically parked on Constitution Avenue, my hands cuffed and crossed behind my back, my right to remain silent long since waived and said goodbye to as I sit in a thickly padded chair that, much like this country isn't quite as comfortable as it looks. -Prologue
I suppose that's exactly the problem - I wasn't raised to know better. My father was (Carl Jung, rest his soul) a social scientist of some renown. As the founder and, to my knowledge, sole practitioner in the field of Liberta... (show all)rian Psychology, he liked to walk around the house, aka "the Skinner box," in a laboratory coat. where I, his gangly, absentminded black lab rat was homeschooled in strict accordance with Piaget's theory of cognitive development, I wasn't fed; I was presented with lukewarm appetitive stimuli. I wasn't punished, but broken of my unconditioned reflexes. I wasn't loved, but brought up in an atmosphere of calculated intimacy and intense levels of commitment. -Chapter 1 - Quotations
- Silence can be either protest or consent, but most times it’s fear.
Foy was no Tree of Knowledge, at most he was a Bush of Opinion. - Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)I never will.
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- Silverman, Sarah; Marcus, Ben; Lipsyte, Sam; Williams, Olivia
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- 813.54
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