Black Buck

A barista who hates coffee. That’s how we are introduced to Darren, an intelligent young man who to his family and friends seems to be going nowhere. But Black Buck is written by Buck, Darren’s super savvy alter ego who made it to the top of the sales world. Here, Buck explains to the reader how you too can make it to the top when it comes to selling. But what he also tells you is that nothing is quite what it seems.

Black Buck is part satire, part cautionary tale and part coming of age mixed in with some crazily wild rides. Darren is happy with his job at Starbucks, but everyone from his mother to his girlfriend is pressuring him that he could be so much more. He’s smart and when he puts his mind to it, he can sell anything to show more anyone. So when he tries to change the mind of one of his regular customers – and succeeds – the customer is impressed. Rhett also happens to be one half of the start-up Sumwun and offers Darren a job. Thinking that this could please everyone else, Darren takes the job and is reinvented as Buck. The training is humiliating and racist, and Buck realises that he’s the only Black person in the office. As Buck’s star rises, he forgets what grounded him until friends of his past come asking for help. He starts teaching other people of colour the secrets of selling and their underground group soon comes to blows with another, creating chaos.

Black Buck is a mix of many plots and occasionally genres and for the most it works well. The coming-of-age plot as Darren grows into Buck, loses his way and then finds it again is well done. Buck becomes almost repulsive at times as he loses his way and brushes off his family and friends, but is redeemed to the reader somewhat by the reflections of Future Buck knowing this is wrong. Future Buck offering wise words and sales tips as he tells his story is an inventive part of the plot and worth a chuckle or two. The satire was hit and miss for me at times. The warring groups taking to New York’s parks for a combative bake sale was amusing, but some of the over-the-top parts of the Sumwun office fell flat for me. Perhaps it was because these were interspersed with extreme, deliberate racist behaviour towards Buck which was really uncomfortable. Buck’s reactions were too, as he knows that even though it’s right to fight, he’s going to be seen as the bad guy because of his race. Buck as a character is flawed as he mixes good person with selfishness and a loss of principles. The ending is a nice way of linking Buck back to Darren again.

Sometimes the big jumps in the narrative, such as from Buck the junior seller to Buck the super seller were hard to settle into. I know that they were necessary to encompass the whole story, but it took a while to get my head round what had happened in the meantime. Buck’s first-person narrative and easy way of engaging the reader helped. I note that in Mateo Askaripour’s acknowledgements that he says the next book will be completely different, and I can’t wait to see what happens. Buck’s story was a wild ride and I’m here for the next journey.

Thank you to Hachette for the copy of this book. My review is honest.

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The Publisher Says: There’s nothing like a Black salesman on a mission.

An unambitious twenty-two-year-old, Darren lives in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother, who wants nothing more than to see him live up to his potential as the valedictorian of Bronx Science. But Darren is content working at Starbucks in the lobby of a Midtown office building, hanging out with his girlfriend, Soraya, and eating his mother’s home-cooked meals. All that changes when a chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of Sumwun, NYC’s hottest tech startup, results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team on the thirty-sixth floor.

After enduring a “hell week” of training, Darren, the only Black person in the show more company, reimagines himself as “Buck,” a ruthless salesman unrecognizable to his friends and family. But when things turn tragic at home and Buck feels he’s hit rock bottom, he begins to hatch a plan to help young people of color infiltrate America’s sales force, setting off a chain of events that forever changes the game.

Black Buck is a hilarious, razor-sharp skewering of America’s workforce; it is a propulsive, crackling debut that explores ambition and race, and makes way for a necessary new vision of the American dream.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: Please, please, someone in Black Hollywood make this into a movie! I can't think of a better time, or a better story, to use this terrific twist on The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit to skewer the shrinking opportunity pool! The Economist cites statistics that show that white bros are more eager than BIPoC employees to return to the office, stop remote working. Reading this book will give you a visceral, intense sense of why that most likely is true...and what the grim consequences for diversity in the workplace could turn out to be.

Not, however, if Author Askaripour has anything to say about it.

You see, there's some truth to the old adages "be careful what you wish for, lest the answer be 'yes'" and "you get back what you give out." Darren, twenty-two and a barista with a pretty good life (he thinks; his mom disagrees), sees one of his regulars ordering the same boring thing every morning. He does what a good sales person always does: suggests an alternative, a different and more interesting drink. Without being crappy about it, he persists until the customer agrees to try the new item. Which he loves.

Darren's brewed his last latte. He upsold the founder of SumWun and now he has a high-powered sales job waiting for him. That maybe he doesn't want...or isn't sure he wants...but let me tell you, when someone who's got what it takes to grab enough money to found a viable tech company wants you, it would do you best to get your stuff out of your locker and go with him right then. There will be no rest until your onboarding process is complete and your world revolves around Selling the Widget.

Author Askaripour chose to frame this narrative as one of those metastatic "positivity/self-help/I succeeded you can too" memoirs recrudescing all over bookstores like lesions on a cancer patient. It was, I thought for about two chapters, going to make me a crazy person. "I have to bail," I whimpered to my Young Gentleman Caller. "I might get seriously ill, this is reminding me of all those years selling!"

"Read me some," he said, "just enter {position number} and let's go."

“Ain’ no Black people need no therapists, ’cause we don’ be havin’ those mental issues. OCD, ADD, PTSD, and all those other acronyms they be comin’ up with every day. I’m tellin’ you, the only acronyms Black folk need help with is the NYPD, FBI, CIA, KKK, and KFC, ’cause I know they be puttin’ shit in those twelve-piece bucket meals to make us addicted to them.”

"That was funny! You haven't got that far yet, you have to find out why that's there," I was ordered.

You rock, Rob. I took the ride, I enjoyed the whole ride, and you're the one who made it happen.

It was sometimes cringe to me how close Author Askaripour sailed to the winds of snottiness. It was often the case, however, that he found my ticklish spot right after that. I am not going to say I think everyone should read the book because the humor-deficient will be blankly confused why it's supposed to be funny or outraged that their demographic is being scored off ("He reeked of privilege, Rohypnol, and tax breaks" is one of the most memorable snorts of derision). For me, possibly for you, there's an aesthetic hill to climb in the format being parodied; but there is something so very good to gain by persevering: Belly laughs at the sheer inventive snark leveled at targets who could use some dings and scratches on their cheap veneer.

Recommended for some good, cathartic belly laughs. show less

The American sales machine (aka capitalism at its best/worst) is totally not my jam, but damn if I wasn’t totally hooked into the story of young salesman Darren (aka “Buck”) who gets roped into working for a cult-like tech startup and whose life quickly spirals into fame, riches, and eventually chaos. Even though the story is on the surface a pretty harsh look at the jaded world of the American sales market - critical of both the extreme measures that young people have to go to in the business world to make it and the people who buy into that culture - the author does so much more than trade on the popular motifs explored in stories like The Wolf of Wall Street, Catch Me if You Can, and Bringing Down the House (aka 21 in film show more format). He has written a really intriguing character in Darren, showing his progression from hapless (but successful) Starbucks barista, to ruthless salesman ruled by the cash, to eventually mentor and creator of a new cultural order, and surrounding him with a cast of characters who even at their most ridiculous are utterly believable. Obviously, the story also plays heavily with themes surrounding race, and how the business world works to keep People of Colour marginalized - an important note to hit in fiction as we are finally (FINALLY) seeing some people wake up to the reality that has been evident for many for years. As we see non-fiction titles exploring these themes flying off the shelves and to the top of the bestseller lists, there are always going to be those segments of the population who would rather explore learning through fiction (and we all know I’m one of them) and it’s books like this one that should hopefully fill that gap. Give me a compelling story that feels true, and I’m going to learn a whole lot more than by reading a list of facts (the classic “show, don’t tell” adage). Black Buck perfects this balancing act, keeping readers glued to the pages as we follow Darren’s escapades, even as we open our minds to critiquing the ridiculous racism and bias that permeates the business world - and hopefully teaching us to act in a better manner. show less

Step aside, Putney Swope and Horatio Alger - Buck and his Happy Campers are here to put up a new ladder of success! Darren, who is a manager at a Manhattan Starbucks, living with his widowed mom in a nice Brooklyn home, has a supportive girlfriend and good neighbors, also graduated as valedictorian from Bronx Science, the premiere city exam school. Years out of school and having skipped college, everyone thinks he's not living up to his potential, but Darren is relatively content - until he upsells a Starbucks customer who sees his enormous nerve and invites him to try out for a sales position at Sumwun, a start-up that features relatively inexpensive online counseling and therapy to large employers. Now "Buck" (his new, ironic show more corporate nickname, from his prior position + blatant racism) turns his story into a serious sales training manual and himself into a powerhouse salesperson. The role-playing training is brutal and Buck's devotion to succeeding is the ruin of his personal life, but the reader trusts his genuine goodness and hangs in during a series of setbacks and chaos at Sumwun. He ultimately launches his own startup to train people of color in the sales techniques he has absorbed, but that doesn't sit well with his company. There's equal parts humor and seriousness here and a bit of "naw, that couldn't really have happened", but it's a total joy to read. show less

Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour exemplifies the idea of laughing instead of crying at the absurdities of life. In this case, the absurdities occur in the racist world of corporate America, as Darren, aka Buck, attempts to break into the white-dominated realm of the nebulous company, Sumwun. Askaripour skewers the racist environment from blatant hazing (having a bucket of white paint dumped on him) to the everyday microaggressions that people of color face. (A running joke throughout the book is co-workers telling Darren he looks like different famous black men.) Almost documentarian in style as the narrative regularly breaks the fourth wall to speak directly to the reader, Black Buck is immensely readable while distilling a strong show more message about our racist society. Reminiscent of Dave Eggers and James McBride, Askaripour definitely forged a place for himself with this book--I can’t wait to see what he does next. show less

Black Buck follows the story of Darren Vender, an unambitious twenty-two-year-old, Darren lives in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother. He’s happy with his Mom, his long term girlfriend, Soraya, his best friend Jason, and Mr. Rawlings, the man who’s lived on the first floor of his house since before he was born. Darren is even content with just being a shift manager at Starbucks. But his Mom wants nothing more than for Darren to live up to his potential. So when Rhett Daniels, the CEO of Sumwun, New York’s newest tech startup, invites Darren to join the elite team on the thirty-sixth floor, Darren agrees.

Quickly finding out he’s the only Black person in the company and after enduring a “hell week” of training, Darren gets show more the new name “Buck”, and turns himself into an impressive salesman who becomes unrecognizable to his friends and family. But after a tragic event back home, Buck feels like he hit rock bottom and he begins to make plans to help young people of color make their way into the sales force and it forever changes the game.

This is Mateo Askaripour’s debut novel and what a talent he is! He definitely takes you on a journey that is wild and crazy. This book deals with a lot, the narrator, Buck, puts it all out on the table for the readers to read and experience: racism, gentrification, white privilege, classism, etc.

The story is told with small “notes” from Buck, who is talking to you from a later time. The little notes really make the novel unique and sometimes even funny. There are many characters and many events that keep the story going and growing. You know it’s all somehow going to blow up, because there are so many ways it could, but how it does is the shock.

This book was not what I expected at all and for that I am glad. I will for sure be keeping Mateo Askaripour on my radar for anything he releases in the future.

*Thank you Bookishfirst and HMH Publishing for an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review show less

[Thank you to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and review an ARC in return for sharing my honest assessment of this book]

Addressing the topic up front - yes, "Black Buck" is specifically about race. The name alone makes a statement, since it has a dark history rooted in the U.S.'s treatment of Black men. Black Buck is - on its surface - a quick read, but there are messages that are intended to be sticky, make us think, and perhaps shine a light on our own behavior. Darren, a young Black barista living in Brooklyn, lands himself in a very Glengarry Glenn Ross job situation. There are some larger than life 'symbolic' characters, but rather than annoy, they play the role of the Greek Chorus, highlighting messages to which we should show more pay attention.

While I'm not going to give away the story line, the take away is that this is a small but mighty tale that forces us to look at our conscious and subconscious preconceptions about race and racism - both in the workplace and in our general lives. RECOMMEND show less