Paul Beatty, 1998
One World, 320 pages
Read and re-read February 2024
Satire
Winston ‘Tuffy’ Foshay and his gang want to make money over the summer. With this end in mind, Tuffy decides to run for office – or, this is the book as the blurb would have it. This high-office caper is actually confined to the last third of the book, rather than actually playing a prominent part, and seems as unfocused as the other two-thirds of the book.
This lack of focus is indicative of the book as a whole, with the plot seeming like a distraction from Tuffy’s misadventures on the streets, Beatty’s rapid-fire satire and the cultural commentary. What the latter is actually trying to express is unclear, even with a second read. Based on his other, more recent books, Beatty does seem like he has a lot to say about the exclusionary nature of American politics,* but the lack of focus makes it unclear whether this is even the point of the book. Tuffy and his gang have moments of insight, but overall run a nihilistic course and, being ambivalent about nearly everything except for money and weed, it’s hard to invest in them as characters either. (Tuffy’s other interest – film – seems a shade too incongruous.) Maybe that’s the point, that the characters have no interest in belonging, akin to a modern day The Outsider, but if there are no stakes it’s hard to care as a reader either.
Worth reading? No
Worth re-reading? No
*In particular, The Sellout.
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