![]() ![]() Makes them realize how far we’ve come, and, more importantly, how far we have to go.” The Sellout does with race what Flannery O’Connor did with religion in books like Wiseblood. For example, after the narrator hangs a sign in the bus that read, “PRIORITY SEATING FOR SENIORS, DISABLED, AND WHITES” he says, “People grouse at first, but the racism takes them back. It’s challenging to explain the premise of Beatty’s novel, which is that maybe you can use racism to make people less racist. That’s difficult to explain if someone’s reading over your shoulder.Įven contextualized within a full synopsis of the book, the racial slurs, along with the main character’s work to resegregate the public busses and schools, are difficult to get a handle on. ![]() ![]() On one page we get a flurry of N-Words, and on the next, Hominy Jenkins, the last surviving cast member of The Little Rascals, is begging the narrator to whip him, to take him on as his slave. At first it seems like Paul Beatty’s new novel The Sellout may not be an ideal book to read on a crowded subway car. ![]()
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