Black Buck - Mateo Askaripour

Fiction

Rating: 9/10

Get ready for an intense and thought provoking read!  In all fairness, the author warns the reader that there is nothing like a Black man on a mission.  Particularly a Black salesman on a mission.  Whether they are selling a product or an ideal, they will not relent. This whole novel comes across like an audacious, in your face sales pitch leavened with sharp wit.

Categorized as a satirical novel about a young man given a shot at stardom as the lone Black salesman at a mysterious, cult-like, and wildly successful start-up where it turns out nothing is as it seems. The author skewers the wretched excesses of capitalism, and the obtuse interactions white people permit themselves with people of colour.

It’s important to note that “Buck” is not our narrator’s real name.  But a nickname assigned to him by his new boss, who bears a not inconsiderable level of resentment that the owner of the sales company they are both employed at plucked him up from his barista job at the Starbucks that resides in the building lobby. Hence the Buck, rather than the Darren that is his real name.

There are so many reasons to love this book, but one of my favourite’s is that the narrator speaks directly to the reader. Peppered throughout are these tidbits in the form of advice, just in case you weren’t paying proper attention to the underlying social commentary of the book. 

“If you’re not Black but have this book in your hands, I want you to think of yourself as an honorary Black person.  Go on, do it.  Don’t go don blackface and an afro but picture yourself as Black.”

Book Pairing(s): The Sellout by Paul Beatty, Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams, Such A Fun Age by Kiley Reid