The “Little Rock Nine” were the first nine black students to enroll in a previously all-white high school, and they were initially blocked from entering by the governor of Arkansas himself. The author of the satirical novels Slumberland, Tuff and The White Boy Shuffle, Beatty has written a wild new book, an uproariously funny, deliciously profane. Board of Education ruling (1954) that declared segregation unconstitutional, and the famous integration crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas, that followed. The Civil Rights Movement is also of major importance in the novel, particularly events such as Rosa Parks’ protest and the ensuing bus boycott, along with the Brown v. In Tuff, Tuffy Foshay is a drug-slinger, competitive eater, sumo-wrestling enthusiast, and candidate for city council. In The White Boy Shuffle, Gunnar Kaufman is a poet, basketball player, and messiah. Ferguson (1896), which upheld the constitutional acceptability of segregation. The poet and novelist Paul Beatty likes to keep a low profile, even when he’s being interviewed. Few novelists write characters as improbably multitudinous as Paul Beatty. Sandford (1857), which ruled that the descendants of slaves did not count as US citizens, and Plessy v. His previous three novels are The White Boy Shuffle (1996), Tuff (2000), and Slumberland (2008). Other significant historical events include certain Supreme Court rulings such as Dred Scott v. The Sellout is both his last book and his fourth novel. Published at the end of Obama’s two-term presidency, the novel critiques the idea that the election of a black president signals the end of racism and a triumph of racial progress. The main event to which The Sellout is responding is the election of Barack Obama in 2008.

The Sellout by Paul Beatty