READ: 14.07.17 - 17.07.17

BOOK: The Sellout

AUTHOR: Paul Beatty

GENRE: Satire

BREIF DESCRIPTION: Born in the 'agrarian ghetto' of Dickens on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles and raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, the narrator of The Sellout spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He is led to believe 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 realises there never was a memoir. All that's left is the bill for a drive-through 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 – Hominy Jenkins – he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school which lands him in the Supreme Court.

What follows is a remarkable journey that challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement and the holy grail of racial equality – the black Chinese restaurant.

REVIEW: I really enjoyed this book, and found something very charming about the narration. I actually went into this book thinking that the outcome would be very different, but you grow to love the narrator and I found myself really thinking about the observations about life which he made throughout.

I found the humour in the novel very much my cup of tea, and I had to stop every page or two to jot down a line that I really liked. I read this book with a smile on my face, and found it very insightful and entertaining.

This is the first satirical book I've read knowingly, and I wasn't sure how I would feel about it seeing as I'm not black or American which are the two main components which make up the majority of the satire within the book. But I still could appreciate the book for what it was despite not fully understanding all the jokes and references within.

FINAL VERDICT: There was something surprisingly warm about this book, and I would recommend this to anyone who wanted to read some racially-charged satire by a massively talented author.

RATING: 8.5/10