Book

The sellout

Beatty, Paul, author

Overview

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. -- Provided by publisher.

• Publisher: Picador
• Subject: Fathers and sons Fiction. / Racism Fiction. / Race relations Fiction. / Fathers and sons. / Race relations. / Racism. / Satire. / Los Angeles (Calif.) Fiction. / California Los Angeles.
• ISBN: 9781250083258, 1250083257

Item info:

1 item available

1 item total in all locations

Holdings :

Call Number	Copies	Material	Location
PS3552.E19 S45 2016	1	BOOK	GENERAL