The Sellout: A Novel
by Paul Beatty
- Used
- near fine
- Hardcover
- Condition
- Near Fine/Fine
- ISBN 10
- 0374260508
- ISBN 13
- 9780374260507
- Seller
-
Carrollton, Texas, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2015. SIGNED. Purchased New. NF/F. 1st/8th. Stated First Edition. Eighth printing with number line 9 10 8. Signed by Paul Beatty on the title page. The book is tight and square with solid hinges and binding and clean unmarred boards. Bottom back corner lightly bumped. The textblock is clean with no writing, bookplate, or markings and not BCE, ex-library or remaindered. The dust jacket is unclipped ($26.00) and Fine. "Winner of the Man Booker Prize" removable sticker on front panel. Protected in a new Brodart Mylar cover. 5¾ x 8½" tall.
The narrator of The Sellout is raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist. He spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies and is led to believe that his father's pioneering work will result in a memoir that will solve his family's financial woes. But when his father is killed in a police shoot-out, he realizes there never was a memoir.
Fueled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, he enlists the help of the town's most famous resident ― the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins ― to initiate the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school.
Reviews
The Sellout is the fourth novel by award-winning American author, Paul Beatty. It won the Man Booker Prize in 2016. Our narrator is the son of a psychologist by the name of Mee (who has dropped the second "e"). Until his untimely and unfortunate death at the hands of the Los Angeles Police, his father was known as the Nigger Whisper for his ability to talk down coloured folk attempting suicide, a role that has been thrust upon the narrator by default.
Since his father's death, he manages their farm in a suburban area of LA once known as the City of Dickens. A talented farmer, he grows, among other cash crops, square watermelons and pot, and his uniquely delicious produce is very popular locally. In the prologue, we find him summoned to appear before the Supreme Court of USA on charges of racial segregation and slavery.
Although our narrator's name is never mentioned, he is referred to by one character as The Sellout, and bears the nickname Bonbon from his performance in a school spelling bee. Beatty gives the reader a cast of quirky characters that includes a former child-actor, the Assistant Principal of the Chaff Middle School, a female bus driver and a has-been TV personality who rewrites classic texts into blackly correct books.
A former city is re-established via Freeway signs and a three-inch-wide white painted border. Meetings of the Dum Dum Donuts Intellectuals are the forum for black ideas and our protagonist employs a sort of reverse psychology that ends up in a resegregation push. He also provides novel take on blackface entertainment.
One World have produced editions of Beatty's four novel with themed covers and this one has a lawn jockey with a gas lamp on the cover, the significance of which becomes clear in the text. This satire has been described as brilliant, outrageous, demented, hilarious and profound, all succinct and accurate descriptors. Very entertaining.
(Log in or Create an Account first!)
Details
- Bookseller
- Armadillo Alley Books (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 3401
- Title
- The Sellout: A Novel
- Author
- Paul Beatty
- Format/Binding
- Cloth
- Book Condition
- Used - Near Fine
- Jacket Condition
- Fine
- Quantity Available
- 1
- Edition
- First Edition - Later Printing
- Binding
- Hardcover
- ISBN 10
- 0374260508
- ISBN 13
- 9780374260507
- Publisher
- Farrar, Straus and Giroux
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 2015
- Size
- 5.75" x 8.5"
- Keywords
- race, satire, man booker prize, humor
- Bookseller catalogs
- Signed Books;
Terms of Sale
Armadillo Alley Books
About the Seller
Armadillo Alley Books
About Armadillo Alley Books
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- Bookplate
- Highly sought after by some collectors, a book plate is an inscribed or decorative device that identifies the owner, or former...
- Number Line
- A series of numbers appearing on the copyright page of a book, where the lowest number generally indicates the printing of that...
- Fine
- A book in fine condition exhibits no flaws. A fine condition book closely approaches As New condition, but may lack the...
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- New
- A new book is a book previously not circulated to a buyer. Although a new book is typically free of any faults or defects, "new"...
- Tight
- Used to mean that the binding of a book has not been overly loosened by frequent use.
- Brodart
- Generally used to refer to a clear plastic cover that is sometimes added to the dustjacket or outside covering of a book. The...
- Title Page
- A page at the front of a book which may contain the title of the book, any subtitles, the authors, contributors, editors, the...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...