The Sellout

Starred review from November 24, 2014
Beatty’s satirical latest (after Slumberland) is a droll, biting look at racism in modern America. At the novel’s opening, its narrator, a black farmer whose last name is Me, has been hauled before the Supreme Court for keeping a slave and reinstituting racial segregation in Dickens, an inner-city neighborhood in Los Angeles inexplicably zoned for agrarian use. When Dickens is erased from the map by gentrification, Me hatches a modest proposal to bring it back by segregating the local school. While his logic may be skewed, there is a perverse method in his madness; he is aided by Hominy, a former child star from The Little Rascals, who insists that Me take him as his slave. Beatty gleefully catalogues offensive racial stereotypes but also reaches further, questioning what exactly constitutes black identity in America. Wildly funny but deadly serious, Beatty’s caper is populated by outrageous caricatures, and its damning social critique carries the day.

Twenty years after THE WHITE BOY SHUFFLE, poet and novelist Beatty spins a satiric novel of 21st-century American racism and racialism so lyrical that audiobook delivery serves it proud. Nicknamed Bonbon as a tween, the now adult and otherwise nameless protagonist spins out how he resegregated his once black Los Angeles-area enclave to prove the theory of his late father, a Skinner-like psychologist. Narrator Prentice Onayemi embodies Bonbon, along with the novel's many unique characters: a former "Our Gang" understudy, a former girlfriend who is now a city bus driver, the denizens of the neighborhood, and the white surfer dudes whom Bonbon regularly confuses at the beach. There's even a small part for Justice Clarence Thomas, which Onayemi does in style, and street Spanish, which, when required, flows perfectly. While Onayemi's breathing is often audible, his mastery of Beatty's patter and cracked Lord Tennyson quotes make up for that. F.M.R.G. 2016 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2016, Portland, Maine