The Sellout by Paul Beatty
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Creating History

Whatever your conscious attitude toward race, and whatever your race, your self-image will be shaken by Paul Beatty's work. And whatever criticism that could be offered about the work has already been addressed within it. To coin a phrase: this changes everything. It cuts through everybody's bunk - white people's, black people's, sociologists', politicians', journalists', not forgetting novelists' major bunk-lode. Beatty's point is clear: the world of race in America is a lot more complex than can be expressed by anyone involved in it. In comparison, quantum physics is kindergarten stuff. By exposing just about every academic and cultural shibboleth available in this tragi-comic masterpiece, Beatty clears the deck for something else. For my money that something else might well be grounded in just one of his prescient observations, "...history isn’t the paper it’s printed on. It’s memory, and memory is time, emotions, and song. History is the things that stay with you." As far as I am concerned, Beatty has created history.

View all my reviews