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The Sellout

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The Sellout

By: Paul Beatty
Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
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About this listen

Winner of the 2016 Man Booker Prize for Fiction

Born in Dickens, Los Angeles, the narrator of The Sellout spent his childhood as the subject in his father's racially charged psychological studies. He is told that his father's memoir will solve their financial woes. But when his father is killed, he discovers there never was a memoir.

Fuelled by despair, he sets out to right this wrong with the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court.

©2015 Paul Beatty (P)2015 Audible, Inc. Literature & Fiction Satire Comedy Funny Witty Thought-Provoking

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Critic reviews

"Outrageous, hilarious and profound.... It takes a whole other level of sheer audacity to expose atrocious things through the play of wit.... Juiciness stains every lovely page of Beatty’s mad, marvellous, toothsome book." ( Financial Times)
"There's satire and then there's satire, and without question Paul Beatty's caustic third novel, The Sellout, definitely falls into the latter category...brutally honest and very funny." ( Independent)
All stars
Most relevant  
Such emotive language it's a difficult listen at times, however well worth confronting your own demons. Cleverly written and wonderfully read - thank you!

Outstanding

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Difficult to get into at first as it is framed in a unique way and many of the cultural reference points are not known that well outside the urban USA.
But the use of language and ideas is excellent.
The performance was excellent and helped immensely with understanding. Actually reading this as text would have been more difficult.

An interesting book

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loved the narration, loved some of the prose but struggled with maintaining interest in the story.

where's the drama

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This book is brilliant and the reader does an absolutely fantastic job. A must read. Or listen.

The best book I've heard this year.

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one of the best books I've ever experienced. so well read too. just brilliant !

just awesome -

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I liked this book a lot, laughing while feeling unsettled by its clear look at modern racist America. I loved it more from this narration. it's so dense with ideas and descriptions and observations that it's cool to have someone read it to you.

This book is wild fierce hilarious satire

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Thoroughly enjoyed this excellent satire on race in the US...the ideas are original, I liked the narration a lot...brought it to life for me, great!

Challenging and Funny Take on Race in US

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Before reading this book, I knew only a few things about it. I know it won the Booker prize and was the first American novel to do so. I had also been given a gist of the story that turned out to be highly misleading. The most common way I heard it described was that it was about a black man who runs a watermelon and weed farm and who brings back slavery to run it, which leads to him going to the supreme court to defend his case, and that the entire thing was a racial satire. While all of that is technically true, it's not in any way what the story is really about and is more a series of minor details.

The protagonist of the book is a black man and his occupation is being a farmer of watermelons and weed (which he is very good at) but the story is about his entire life, not about the farm. A large portion covers his childhood in the fictional town of Dickens (somewhere in the Los Angeles metropolitan area and could be considered analogous to places like Compton or Watts) with his well-educated, black supremacist father. For the most part, the plot is just the day-to-day life of the comical cast of characters. The part about the protagonist bringing back slavery isn't really true. He owns one slave, but it's a person who wants to be a slave and doesn't do any work. The Supreme Court segments are exclusively at the start and end of the book and there are no court battles or arguments on the subject.

I do think the book was funny. It's definitely got some pretty original takes on the idea of race in America that don't fall squarely into what anyone could call "liberal" or "conservative" and the lead character is quite idiosyncratic. He's also highly skeptical and cynical of pretty much everyone around him, and a lot of the humour comes from his sardonic opinions on other characters, which were always enjoyable.

I feel like I might have enjoyed this more if I had different expectations on what the story was about, so I'm hoping to dispel these common misleading descriptors for anyone else. Just be aware that there is little in the way of plot and that it's a story first and foremost about its characters and you'll probably enjoy it a lot more.

I do have to commend the reader though, who I thought did an excellent job. The narration is from the point of view of the central character and I really felt like he brought that character to life in his performance.

Well written but a little disappointing

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A remarkable, intelligent and hilarious read with beautifully drawn characters, strong sense of place and bold premise. A story of race from a black perspective, actually from all perspectives. It's a history lesson and a lesson for now and the future. Engaging and richly textured, addressing identity and belonging, this book probes at the heart of American culture and politics raising questions that are fundamental the world over. Contemporary and cutting, this book is extremely funny and poignant and has the potential to be a classic. Highly recommend. Loved it.

Genuinely funny and poignant

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Excellent narrator.
I do think the nuances would be more appreciated if you actually read the book itself. I sometimes found it difficult to follow as the timelines jumped around.

Subtle Humour

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