Tuff
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Format: Hardcover, 257pp.
ISBN: 0375401229
Publisher: Knopf Alfred A
Pub. Date: May 2000
Edition Desc 1 ED
Fueled by the ferocious wit, outrageous comedy,
and flat-out rage that made his debut novel, The White Boy Shuffle, one
of the most passionately reviewed books of 1996 ("A blast of satirical heat
from the talented heart of Black American life" --New York Times;
"As much in the tradition of Richard Pryor as Ralph
Ellison" --The Village Voice), Tuff unleashes Paul
Beatty's verbal dazzle and nothing-sacred sensibility on the story of a young
black man coming of age on the streets and stoops of Spanish Harlem.
Nineteen-year-old, 320-pound Winston "Tuffy" Foshay -- player king of
a motley crew that includes his scheming, disabled best friend, Fariq, otherwise
known as Smush; his Beat-poet, Black Panther father, Clifford; Inez, the
unreconstructed Marxist revolutionary who raised him; and his bewildered mentor
from the Big Brother program, the hapless African-American rabbi Spencer
Throckmorton -- is ready to make a change. So when Inez offers him $20,000 to
run for city council, Tuffy gamely embarks on one of the most outlandish
campaigns in political history, one that topples both his vision of the world
and his place in it.
Beatty's fierce gifts have never been more apparent: Tuff marks the
return of one of this generation's freshest voices.
