Last month, Paul Beatty became the first American to win the Man Booker Prize. Barbara Campos delves into the novel that won, The Sellout.
PAUL Beatty’s The Sellout, winner of the Man Booker Prize, is a satirical novel set in the fictional city of Dickens, Los Angeles. It all starts in the Supreme Court of Justice where the protagonist, Me, is being accused “of everything from desecration of the Homeland to conspiracy to upset the apple cart.”
We later discover that Me’s crimes were due to the reinstatement of segregation and slave ownership. Beatty then traces back the life of this man, deeply affected by a history and culture that changed from night to day. This feeling is encapsulated when Me sees a black comedian kick out two white audience members in a comedy club for laughing saying “this is our thing”. Me’s thought – “so what exactly is our thing?” is what this book is about. It questions everything we may believe regarding black cultural identity.
The protagonist’s relationship with his father, a psychologist with rather unorthodox experiments, overshadows the entire book. Even after his death there is a sense that Me reacts against him, or in his memory. The narrator details that at age of eight his father decides to test the bystander effect (“the more people around to provide help, the less likely one is to receive help”) by having him stand around an intersection:
“Dollar bills bursting from my pockets, the latest shiniest electronic gadgetry jammed into my ear canals, a hip-hop heavy gold chain hanging from my neck, and, inexplicably, a set of custom-made carpeted Honda Civic floor mats draped over my forearm like a waiter’s towel…”
His father then proceeds to mug the boy himself, and people around him finish it off by taking whatever was left and beating him up. This relationship has more to it, and beneath its harsh superficiality, it is clear that this is a father trying to inspire his son to be aware of the infinite amount of inequality in society.
“Beatty talked to 18 publishers before being offered a deal.”
After his father dies, expectation falls on Me to fulfill his duties: lead the Dum Dum Donut Intellectuals, a group that meets bi-monthly to discuss cases of inequality. Me is a reluctant member, considering the meetings pointless.
Hereafter, Me begins helping the police when there are cases of black people on the verge of suicide, or going through breakdowns. He acts almost like a specialist in hostage situations, highlighting the disparities between the police force and black communities. It’s after one of these occasions that Me ends up owning a slave. After attempting suicide Hominy, a former child-star nostalgic for the past, explains that he has completely lost his sense of identity – “Dickens disappeared, I disappeared… I just want to feel relevant.”
This is the prevalent idea in the novel: what does one do after one’s identity is taken? It seems a reflection on the consequences of total abandonment, of an establishment that thinks everything is okay. After the abolishment of slavery, segregation, the civil rights movement, and even a black US president, there is this temptation to say everything is fine, we are all equal.
“This is the prevalent idea of the novel: what does one do after one’s identity is taken?”
Beatty explores the disfranchisement of a group of people through ways that may outwardly appear to be fair. The response these characters have may appear extreme, but maybe it can be said that they adopt slavery as a way to belong again, and segregation to achieve control. The more you read this book, the more it will become clear that the “racism” in it is simply a means established for society to give African-American’s a defined presence. Otherwise, they face being ignored and put away. They do not want to integrate into white society and culture. They are proud to be black, and proud to be a part of a different culture and history.
Beatty achieves this with extremely poetic language and without ever stopping to be funny. It was also a hard book to sell – Beatty talked to 18 publishers before being offered a deal. Every publisher said it was great but maybe too hot to handle. While the book can make you uncomfortable, and as a white, middle-class woman I felt uncomfortable, this is not a reason to shy away from reading, publishing, and discussing racial issues. In fact, it is very important we do. This book is a must-read.
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