From the Publisher
In Paul Beatty's hilarious and scathing debut novel, Gunnar Kaufman is an awkward black surfer bum who is moved from Santa Monica to urban West Los Angeles. There, he begins to undergo a transformation from neighborhood outcast to basketball superstar, and eventually becomes the reluctant messiah of a "divided, down-trodden people."
Jeanie Pyun
In his satirical first novel, Paul Beatty -- a prominent hip-hop poet who's been lauded by the likes of Henry Louis Gates, Jr. -- presents a very unique character indeed. Gunnar Kaufman comes from a long line of African-American men who, at first glance, might be deemed a disgrace to their race. Well, okay, at second glance, too: His family tree includes a manservant so loyal no one had the nerve to tell him that his white master was dead; a first-generation-free artist who sought inspiration in a return to the slave lifestyle; a music promoter of white acts that ripped off Motown and R&B groups; and his father, who works proudly, wholeheartedly and unconflictedly for the LAPD.
Gunnar has his own problems: his mother "rescues" him from a life of Santa Monica privilege (Generation X style -- picture a smart, ironic boy who listens to Henry Rollins and hangs out with bar-mitzvahed surfers) and plops him down in inner-city L.A. They live near a "bustling Italian intersection, without the Italians" -- but with gangs, guns and girls sporting towering, sculptured hairdos who love to kick his ass.
Gunnar manages to survive, albeit with some formidable -- nay, mythical -- tools. These include a devastating basketball dunk; his terse, tragicomic poetry; and the love of what can only be termed a postmodern posse -- a Mishima-worshipping star ball player; an honorable, crossbow-carrying gangbanger named Psycho Loco; and a sassy, quickwitted Asian mail-order bride. If all this sounds a bit over the top and too clever for its own good, it is. But you'll barely notice that among Beatty's many humorous ambushes. (I found myself making those strangulated-sounding yips and barks that tend to embarrass in public. Yip rate: one about every two pages.)
Beatty's brilliantly twisted parodies of racial stereotypes are a marvel, as is his fast-paced, yet disciplined, writing style: "Mrs. Schaefer spat off the names like salted peanut shells. 'Wardell dams?' 'Here.' Varnell Alvarez?' 'Aqui.' 'Praise-the-Lord Benson?' 'Yupper.' 'Chocolate Fondue Edgerton?' 'That's my name, ask me again and you'll be walking with a cane.' 'I don't know how to pronounce the next one.' 'You pronounce it like it sounds, bitch. Maritza hakaleema Esperanza the goddess Tlazoteol Eladio.' 'So you're here?' 'Do crack pipes get hot?'"
No matter how fast and furious the laughs, it's clear that Gunnar's constant parlaying of life's sow's ears into silk Prada bags (he attends Boston University; his poetry provokes a profound new political movement) is really a fictional counterpart to Beatty's own survival m.o. The White Boy Shuffle leaves you with the stark realization that its hilarity comes at a high cost. -- Salon
Publishers Weekly
Poet Beatty's (Big Bank Take Little Bank) first novel is a kaleidoscopic literary situation comedy about one unusual African American's search for identity within a wickedly caricatured American cultural and ethnic landscape. The protagonist, narrator Gunnar Kaufman, is the latest in a long and hilarious family line of groveling Uncle Toms and accommodating fools who must nevertheless confront racism with whatever talents or hustles they happen to have. The Kaufman family's "long cowardly queue of coons'' began in the 18th century with Euripides Kaufman (who purchased his freedom by charging people "to rub me head for good luck"); continued with Franz Von Kaufman ("exceedingly bootlicking even for a slave"); and included Gunnar's own despised and self-despising father, Rolf, a member of the LAPD noted for laughing uproariously at his white colleague's racist jokes. Though Beatty's exuberantly outrageous satire often veers into slapstick, he shows himself as an astute observer of the ubiquitous power of cultural stereotype and of the elasticity of identity and community. Alternately blocked by racist assumptions and a cultivated black insularity, Kaufman's passage to self-knowledge takes him from a childhood in affluent, mostly white Santa Monica (he was the cool black guy) to a sudden relocation to the pitiless black inner-city culture in L.A.'s gangbanging Hillside neighborhood and on to ever more absurd acclaim as a basketball prodigy and street-bred poet. Beatty has a gift for hyperbolic cartoon-like characterizations and poetic parody and a sharp ear for the vivid spoken-word poetry of hip hop and urban black slang. And although he's never met a corny joke he won't force on a reader, his language and outlandish characters combine to produce an extravagantly comic vision of the American cultural moment.
Library Journal
Stylistically, this first novel is a tribute to one of Beatty's teachers, Allen Ginsberg. An author of two volumes of verse who has often been proclaimed the poet laureate of Generation X, Beatty effectively uses the Beat influence to amplify the voice of the hip-hop generation. Gunnar Kaufman, the protagonist of this coming-of-age story, earned his streetwise education in West Los Angeles, not unlike the author. Gunnar is just trying to be Gunnaran intelligent, sensitive young African American who survives great tribulations while sparing no one his enormous wit. He is clearly a product of our times, and many readers will enjoy his piercing, often hilarious observations on contemporary society. It will be interesting to see what else this talented writer produces in the ensuing years. Meanwhile, this work will ring especially true to those under 35. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 2/15/96.]Susan M. Olcott, Columbus Metropolitan Lib., Ohio
Kirkus Reviews
Hip-hop poet Beatty delivers a first novel that almost lives up to its hype. His manic energy and nothing-sacred sensibility add up to some inspired irreverence in a book mocking every sacred cow of Afro-American history.
Beatty smartly mythologizes street culture even as he demythologizes so much of official black experience. His narrator, Gunnar Kaufmann, a self-described demagogue and messiah, preaches a nihilistic credo of mass suicide for blacks, an "Emancipation Disintegration." The novel is Gunnar's Monty Pythonish rewrite of Afro-American history, including tales of ancestors who escaped into slavery and leading up to the relative who set up Malcolm X. Gunnar's early years in Santa Monica are a p.c. joke, with everyone massaging his "tragic negro" status. When his mom decides to move him to the 'hood, the street-stupid Gunnar learns how to talk black and get down with the homeys. In high school, he becomes a basketball superstar and an aspiring poet with his own posse of like-minded ghetto geeks, including Nicholas Scoby, a fellow basketball star and ace student. When these bros' get down, it means a drive-by arrow-shooting with an operatic soundtrack. Eventually, Nick and Gunnar land scholarships to Boston University, where Gunnar publishes his first book, Watermelanin, which sells millions of copies and makes Gunnar a reluctant spokesman for black America. His message, though, is a Mishima-inspired call for mass suicide and an end to all African-Americans. Along the way in this crazy romp, Beatty mocks Afrocentrism, concerned white liberals, the idea of black leadership, the poetry scene in America, and every iconic figure of Black History month.
A wildly inventive debut that veers between spirited brilliance and Def Comedy Jam vulgarity.
What People Are Saying
Clarence Major
"Every sentence is an exploding firecracker, driving the story along at the speed of computer-light. While it is the funniest novel I've read in years. It's also dead serious, especially as it gained momentum and reaches that incredible, absurd, romantic, and terrifying end."
Jessica Hagedorn
"What a wicked, wicked book. I laughed so hard, I hurt. I hurt so hard, I laughed. Like a 90s Richard Pryor peaking estatically on acid, Paul Beatty wrecks poetic hovac with the English venacular and captures the deadly cook beneath the heat of L.A.'s volitile landscape. Beatty's delicious cast of characters are very much of the moment: often bi-lingual, media-savvy, trigger-happy, and crazy beautiful."
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