Paul Beatty - The White Boy Shuffle

Rating: 4/5

Review:
Good, not brilliant

I’m glad to have read The White Boy Shuffle, but I found it slightly hard going.

I thought The Sellout was simply brilliant. This, Paul Beatty’s first novel, has many of the same qualities: his use of language is remarkable and often poetic, the insights into race, class and personal relationships are very sharp and very cleverly expressed as satire and he makes very important and valuable points about vital contemporary issues. However, even though it’s witty in places, there was to me a slightly worthy feel about it which made some of it a slightly turgid read. By the time he wrote The Sellout, Beatty had honed his style and technique rather more, so that book had all the qualities of insight and analysis of this, but was also hilariously funny and immensely readable – qualities which are a little harder to find here.

So, recommended overall but a bit of a struggle at times.

(My thanks to Oneworld Publications for an ARC via NetGalley.)