Camp
Elaine Wolf, 2012
Sky Pony Express
259 pp.
9781632204226
Summary
Amy Becker’s mother holds a dark secret. In fact, her whole past is a secret.
All Amy knows is that her mother came from Germany—and that her mother doesn’t love her. That icy voice. Those rigid rules of how to eat, dress, walk, talk, and think. No matter what Amy does, no matter how much she follows the rules, she just can’t earn her mother’s love.
But everything changes that summer of 1963, when fourteen-year-old Amy is sent to Camp Takawanda for Girls. Takawanda, where all the rules get broken. Takawanda, where mean girls practice bullying as if it were a sport. Takawanda, where Amy’s cousin unveils the truth about Amy’s mother, setting in motion a tragic event that changes Amy and her family forever.
Author Bio
• Birth—1948
• Raised—Great Neck, New York, USA
• Education—B.A., M.A., New York University
• Currently—lives in Los Angeles, California
Known as “the anti-bullying novelist,” Elaine Wolf writes about what really goes on behind the closed gates and doors of our camps and schools. The issues she explores in her novels are those she is passionate about and knows well.
She was a camper and camp counselor for many summers. When she entered “the real world,” she taught in public schools in California and New York. In her most recent teaching position, she served as a high school reading specialist, and then she became the district language arts chairperson. In that position, Wolf designed and supervised reading and writing programs for students at all grade levels, facilitated reading groups and writers’ workshops, and selected books for classroom libraries as well as for ancillary and summer reading lists.
One of the author’s greatest joys was getting wonderful books into the hands of students, teachers, and parents. In the time before Kindles and iPads, she spent countless hours stocking shelves with “good reads.” And she dreamed of seeing her books on those shelves. Now she is thrilled that Camp and Danny’s Mom are there.
Although critics call her novels “mesmerizing” and "must-reads," what pleases Wolf more than great reviews is the fact that Camp and Danny’s Mom have given her a literal bully pulpit—a platform from which to carry on the anti-bullying conversation so that, in concert with professionals, we will make our camps and schools kinder, more embracing communities for everyone. Wolf is committed to keeping this conversation going until the bullying epidemic ends.
The author and her husband raised their children in Roslyn, New York, where she was a co-facilitator of an adult writers’ workshop. Then they moved to Northampton, Massachusetts, a community brimming with readers, writers, artists, and musicians. Shortly after settling there, Wolf won a prize for short fiction (the perfect welcome for her). Currently, she and her husband live in Los Angeles, California. (From the author.)
Visit the author's website.
Follow Elaine on Facebook.
Book Reviews
Tough to stop reading…rings sadly true.
Booklist
A must-read for teenage girls struggling to enter the adult world.
Children’s Literature
A perfect ten!
VOYA
A beautifully written and important story about bullying and the complexities of the mother-daughter relationship that is a must read!
mompopculture.com
A fascinating, emotional tale. A perfect addition to any reading list.
examiner.com
This book grabs you and shakes you down to your core. It’s rare, unique, and to be treasured. Elaine Wolf deserves tremendous praise for her amazing talent.
UniquelyMoiBooks.com
I refused to stop reading until I had finished Camp.
Nerdy Book Club
There’s something in Camp that will resonate with every reader. This is a story about the horrors of bullying, the bonds of family, the power of memory, and the strength that one can find in the most unlikely places. Get it now.
TheWriteTeachers
An excellent book for mothers and daughters to read together. I would definitely read Elaine Wolf again!
I’dSoRatherBeReading.com
Impossible to put down until you reach the final word.
ratherbereadingblog.com
I loved this book and think it’s suitable for all ages. It should be required reading in schools.
I’d Rather Be Reading At The Beach
Camp is definitely a book that should be read and discussed. It’s intense, surprising, and chock full of emotion.
YAloveblog.com
Discussion Questions
1. The most realistic characters in novels evoke our sympathy at times and our lack of sympathy at other times. When and why do you have sympathy for Amy? And when, if ever, don’t you have sympathy for her? Using this framework, discuss Amy’s mother, her father, and Rory as characters for whom you feel sympathy at some times and a lack of sympathy at others.
2. There are many interesting relationships in Camp. Discuss the relationship between Amy and her mother; the relationship between Amy and her brother, Charlie; Amy and her cousin, Robin; Amy’s father and his brother, Uncle Ed; and Amy’s mother and Uncle Ed.
3. Another interesting relationship is the one between Amy’s mother and father. Why do you think Amy’s father doesn’t stand up to her mother? Is Amy’s father a good father? Why or why not?
4. Why does Amy say she hates her mother? Why does her mother’s accent bother Amy so much? Do you think children of immigrants often feel embarrassed by their parents? If so, why?
5. Even though Amy says she hates her mother, she still seeks her mother’s approval. She wants her mother to think she’s popular, smart, and pretty. Why?
6. Early in the novel, Amy wonders why her mother needs everything to be done in a particular way. “But why this requirement of perfection,” Amy asks herself, “those stupid rules that governed our lives?” Why do you think Amy’s mother imposes this requirement of perfection? What function do her rules serve for her? And why is Amy’s mother obsessed with appearances?
7. The characters in Camp make many choices. What motivates the choices that Amy, her mother, her father, Rory, Erin, Uncle Ed, and Patsy make? While reading, how did you feel about their choices? After reading, do you have new insights about the choices they make?
8. Why does Amy lie in her letters? Why doesn’t she tell anyone what’s really happening at Camp Takawanda? What do you think could have or would have happened had Amy told the truth?
9. At the beginning of the camp season, when Rory threatens Amy with “a special introduction” to the kitchen boys, Amy can’t find her voice. Why can’t she talk back to Rory? What do you think you might have done if you were Amy? What might you have done if you were one of the other campers?
10. Critics call Camp a multi-layered story with many themes. Some say it’s a novel about trying to fit in; others say it’s about secrets; still others write that it’s mainly about bullying. What do you think are the main themes of Camp?
11. Camp has been described as “a story about the collateral damage of secrets.” Which characters hold secrets? What purposes do secrets serve for these characters? What harm is caused by the secrets in this novel?
12. Who are the bullies in Camp? How do they elicit fear and compliance? How do they maintain their power?
13. Why does Rory choose a new target after visiting day? What does that tell us about bullies? Why do you think Amy’s cousin, Robin, sides with Rory?
14. Could Nancy, the head counselor, have stopped the bullying? Should Clarence, who is in charge of the kitchen, have intervened? Is Uncle Ed also to blame? Why doesn’t he take action?
15. Do you think Erin is a good friend to Amy? Why or why not? What are the characteristics of a good friend?
16. There are several recurring sayings or expressions in this story—“everything in its place, and a place for every think,” for example. What are some other repeated sayings? How do they add to your reading of Camp?
17. Discuss the symbolism of Amy’s mother’s metal box, of her perfectly fluffed pillows, and of Amy’s Russian nesting dolls.
18. Camp is often called a coming-of-age novel. By the time Amy leaves camp, she is quite different from how she is when she arrives. What lessons does Amy learn at camp? What does Amy want at the beginning of the summer? What does she want at the end? Does she get what she wants? If so, what price does she pay to attain it?
19. At the end of Camp, we learn about Amy’s mother’s history. Does her background justify the way in which she treats her children? Do you feel differently about Amy’s mother after you know her story? Toward the beginning of Camp, Amy wonders: “Why couldn’t my mother just love us?” What is the answer to that question? And how does Amy come to forgive her mother?
20. There are two epigraphs at the beginning of the novel. One is attributed to William Faulkner: “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” The other is from Anne Michaels: “My parents' past is mine molecularly.” Discuss these quotes as they relate to Camp.
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
My Sister's Child
Caroline Finnerty, 2015
Poolbeg Press
380 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781781999448
Summary
My Sister's Child is the story of two sisters, and one huge question.
Jo is the elder sister, responsible and hardworking. Isla is carefree and has always avoided being tied down. The sisters have always had a strained relationship, but when Isla asks Jo for something that rocks the very foundations of the family that Jo has worked so hard to have, she is horrified.
And, as Isla persists in her pleas, Jo fears she will lose the one thing she holds most dearly.
Thought-provoking and compelling, this is a layered and moving story of sisterhood, love and lies and the finely-woven link between nature and nurture that will challenge the way you think about motherhood.
Author Bio
• Birth—November 6, 1980
• Where—Kildare, Ireland
• Education—N/A
• Currently—Kildare, Ireland
Caroline Finnerty is an Irish author and freelance writer living on the banks of the Grand Canal in the County Kildare countryside with her husband, their three young children and their dog.
She is the author of In a Moment, The Last Goodbye, Into the Night Sky and My Sister’s Child. She also compiled the charity anthology If I Was a Child Again in aid of Barnardos.
Caroline has written articles for The Irish Daily Mail, The Star, Woman’s Way Magazine, as well as several parenting magazines. (From the author.)
Visit the author's website.
Follow Caroline of Facebook.
Book Reviews
My Sister's Child is a clever and layered story of love, lies and sisterhood that shines a bright light on the emotional fallout of assisted conception
Irish Independent
Full of suspense, heartbreaking at times, yet uplifting at others, I'd highly recommend this excellent book
Chicklit Club
Discussion Questions
1. Do you think that Isla gave enough consideration to her offer to donate eggs to her sister?
2. Whose "side," if any, were you on?
3. Did you feel empathy for Jo's stance initially? What about afterwards?
4. Jo argues that by virtue of the fact that Isla was the younger of the two of them, that she lived a carefree existence whereas she was burdened down with the weight of expectation. Do you think the position you are born in a family impacts on how you are raised?
5. Isla and Jo have very different attitudes to their mother’s choice to end her own life. Isla is almost ambivalent towards her whereas Jo is angry. Why do you think this is?
6. Do you think Jo is more similar to her mother than she would like to admit? What characteristics do they share?
7. Jo firmly believes that 'nurture' is what matters more so than 'nature'. What is your opinion on the nature versus nurture debate?
8. Modern reproductive techniques throw up a lot of ethical dilemmas for today's society. Do you agree with using a donor to conceive a child?
9. If you were a single woman nearing forty desperate to have a child, would you consider "going it alone" like Isla?
10. Which character do you think grew most over the course of the story?
(Questions courtesy of the author.)
All the Old Knives
Olen Steinhauer, 2015
Macmillan : Picador
336 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250045430
Summary
Six years ago in Vienna, terrorists took over a hundred hostages, and the rescue attempt went terribly wrong. The CIA's Vienna station gathered intel during those tense hours, assimilating facts from the ground and from an agent on the inside.
So when it all went wrong, the question had to be asked: Had their agent been compromised, and how?
Two of the CIA's case officers in Vienna, Henry Pelham and Celia Harrison, were lovers at the time, and on the night of the hostage crisis Celia decided she'd had enough. She left the agency, married and had children, and now lives in idyllic Carmel-by-the-Sea. Henry is still a case officer in Vienna, and has traveled to California to see her one more time, to relive the past, maybe, or to put it behind him once and for all.
But neither of them can forget that long-ago question: Had their agent been compromised? If so, how? Each also wonders what role tonight's dinner companion might have played in the way the tragedy unfolded six years ago.
All the Old Knives is New York Times bestseller Olen Steinhauer's most intimate, most cerebral, and most shocking novel to date. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 21, 1970
• Where—Baltimore, Maryland, USA
• Education—University of Pennsylvania, Lock Haven; University of Texas, Austin;
M.F.A. Emerson College
• Awards—Dashiell Hammett Award
• Currently—lives in New York City and Budapest, Hungary
Olen Steinhauer is an American writer of spy fiction novels, including The Tourist, the Milo Weaver Trilogy, and the Yalta Boulevard Sequence.
Early life
Steinhauer was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and grew up in Virginia. He attended the University of Pennsylvania at Lock Haven, and the University of Texas at Austin. He received an MFA in creative writing at Emerson College in Boston.
Career
After graduation, Steinhauer received a year-long Fulbright grant to write a novel in Romania about the Romanian Revolution. It was called Tzara's Monocle, and when he moved to New York City afterward, he used that manuscript to secure a literary agent. However, it was with another book, the historical mystery set in Eastern Europe, The Bridge of Sighs, that Steinhauer first found publication.
His 2009 CIA novel, The Tourist, received positive reviews and is being developed for film by Sony Pictures.
During the winter of 2009-10, Steinhauer was the Picador Guest Professor for Literature at the University of Leipzig's Institute for American Studies in Leipzig, Germany.
The Yalta Boulevard Sequence
A five-book series of thrillers chronicling the evolution of a fictional Eastern European country situated in the historical location of Ruthenia (now part of the Ukraine) during the Cold War, with one book for each decade. Each book also focuses on a different main character.
2003 - The Bridge of Sighs (Emil Brod, 1948; nominated for five awards)
2004 - The Confession (Ferenc Kolyeszar, 1956)
2005 - 36 Yalta Boulevard (Brano Sev, 1966–1967)
2006 - Liberation Movements (Brano Sev, et al., 1968 & 1975; nominated for the Edgar Award)
2007 - Victory Square (2007) (Emil Brod, 1989, the end of communism)
The Milo Weaver Trilogy
Spy tales focused on international deception in the post 9/11 world.
2009 - The Tourist
2010 - The Nearest Exit
2012 - An American Spy
Standalone novels
2014 - The Cairo Affair
2015 - All the Old Knives
(Author bio adapted from Wikipedia. Retrieved 11/18/2015.)
Book Reviews
Olen Steinhauer's unusually short and wily spy novel…[is a] sneaky little gem…Mr. Steinhauer finds ways to work many different perspectives—even those of the wait staff, very briefly—into the seemingly simple story of one little amorous evening for old times' sake…Mr. Steinhauer sustains the difficult balancing act of melding a heart-racing espionage plot with credible dinner table conversation. He never violates the book's basic premise, not even when his characters begin to have the darkest suspicions about each other.
Janet Maslin - New York Times
[A] sneaky little gem.... Sustains the difficult balancing act of melding a heart-racing espionage plot with credible dinner table conversation.... Mr. Steinhauer specializes in tough showdowns. And the more innocently they begin, the more devastatingly they end.
New York Times Book Review
A splendid tour de force.... Without neglecting the turmoil of the geopolitical landscape, the novel focuses more intensely on the equally treacherous landscapes of the human heart.
Washington Post
It's not news that Olen Steinhauer is among the best contemporary espionage writers, and All the Old Knives confirms it. If you're a fan of intelligent spy novels that don't need much bang-bang, details about ordnance, or people who save the world single-handedly, this one's for you.
Seattle Times
Most of All the Old Knives revolves around Pelham and Favreau's dinner, and the fact that the book moves so swiftly and alluringly is a testament to Steinhauer's skills as an entertainer. He stretches considerable tension across an entire book, rather than a handful of swift scenes, and it's gratifying to watch him do something so daringly retro and contrary to what we've come to expect in a thriller.
Richmond Times-Dispatch
(Starred review.) A quiet dinner for two...unfolds into something much more dramatic.... There’s great narrative energy in the thrust and counterthrust of the dinner conversation.... Steinhauer is a very fine writer and an excellent observer of human nature, shrewd about the pleasures and perils of spying.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) This genre-bending spy novel takes Hitchcockian suspense to new heights. Over the course of a meal with flashbacks, the eternal questions of trust, loyalty, and authentic love are deftly dissected. Readers...will be thrilled to follow Henry and Celia's tortured pas de deux. —Barbara Conaty, Falls Church, VA
Library Journal
(Starred review.) [M]asterfully plotted and suspenseful.... Steinhauer expertly shifts perspectives between the two spies in both their present and past lives.... It's an understatement to say that nothing is as it seems, but even readers well-versed in espionage fiction will be pleasantly surprised by Steinhauer's plot twists and double backs.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. What did you think about the title, All the Old Knives, inspired by this famous Phaedrus quote: “All the old knives that have rusted in my back, I drive into yours”?
2. Famous novels such as Catcher in the Rye and Gone Girl have the theme of the lying narrator. How did the main characters’ narrations affect your understanding of what was reality and what was fiction?
3. Both Henry and Celia seem to make a good claim for themselves. Did you feel more sympathetic towards one over the other? If so, why?
4. Perspective plays an interesting role in the novel. Why did Henry and Celia feel so differently about their relationship?
5. What do you think the next 2 pages would reveal if added on to the ending of the book?
6. The entirety of the novel takes place over the course of one meal. What do you think was gained by this restriction? Do you think anything was lost?
The Wonder Garden
Lauren Acampora, 2015
Grove / Atlantic
368 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780802124814
Summary
John likes to arrive first. He enjoys standing quietly with a house before his clients arrive, and today, although he feels pinned beneath an invisible weight, he resolves to savor this solitary moment.
It’s one of those overhauled ranches so common to Old Cranbury these days, swollen and dressed to resemble a colonial. White, of course, with ornamental shutters and latches pretending to hold them open. A close echo of its renovated sisters on Whistle Hill Road, garnished with hostas and glitzed with azaleas. He has seen too many of these to count . . .
- A man strikes an under-the-table deal with a surgeon to spend a few quiet seconds closer to his wife than he’s ever been;
- a young soon-to-be mother looks on in paralyzing astonishment as her husband walks away from a twenty-year career in advertising at the urging of his spirit animal;
- an elderly artist risks more than he knows when he’s commissioned by his newly arrived neighbors to produce the work of a lifetime.
In her stunning debut The Wonder Garden, Lauren Acampora gathers with enchanting realism the myriad lives of a suburban town and lays them bare.
These intricately interwoven stories take a trenchant look at the flawed people of Old Cranbury, the supposedly ordinary lives they lead, and the secrets they try so desperately to hide. Acampora’s characters are neighbors, lovers, friends, who, beneath their dreamy suburban surface, are nothing like they appear.
These incisive tales reveal at each turn the unseen battles we play out behind drawn blinds, the creeping truths from which we distract ourselves, and the massive dreams we haul quietly with us and hold close.
Deliciously creepy and masterfully choreographed, The Wonder Garden heralds the arrival of a phenomenal new talent in American fiction. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—ca. 1975-76
• Raised—suburban Connecticut, USA
• Education—B.A., Brown University; M.F.A., Brooklyn College
• Currently—lives in Westchester County, New York
Raised in Connecticut, Lauren Acampora graduated from Brown University. After college she headed to New York City where she worked at The Copoer Union and eventually as an editorial assistant at Little, Brown and Company publishers. She went on to earn her Masters in Fiction Writing in 2004 from the City University of New York, Brooklyn College.
Her debut collection of linked stories, The Wonder Garden, was published in 2015 and named "Spotlight of the Month," as well as an "Indie Next" selection.
Acampora's short fiction has also appeared in publications such as the Paris Review, Missouri Review, Prairie Schooner, New England Review, Antioch Review, and Day One.
Acampora and her husband, artist Thomas Doyle, moved to the New York suburbs of Westchester County with their young daughter. (Adapted from the publisher.)
Book Reviews
Like Wharton, Acampora seems to understand fiction as a kind of elegant design. As characters reappear in one story after another, Acampora reveals herself as a careful architect...accomplishes great depth of characterization, in no small part because Acampora doesn’t shy from the unpalatable.... There is a barbed honesty to the stories that brushes up against Acampora’s lovely prose to interesting effect. Often a single sentence twists sinuously, charged with positive and negative electricity.
Alix Ohlin - New York Times Book Review
Acampora is a brilliant anthropologist of the suburbs.... [The Wonder Garden] is reminiscent of John Cheever in its anatomizing of suburban ennui and of Ann Beattie in its bemused dissection of a colorful cast of eccentrics. But Acampora’s is entirely her own book.... Acampora’s ability to lay bare the heartaches of complex individuals within an utterly unique imaginative world is worthy of high praise.
Boston Globe
Acampora’s stories show that an Anna Karenina principle still applies: All happy families are the same; the unhappy ones are miserable in their own special way. Or to boil it down to modern terms: mo’ money, mo’ problems.... Add well-drawn characters, interesting plots, cultural zingers and dead-on critiques of consumerism and Acampora delivers a page-turner.
Dallas Morning News
In 13 sharply drawn linked stories, Acampora reveals the complexities beneath the polish and privilege of a prosperous Connecticut town.
People
A smashing debut, with range, subtlety and bite. Reading Acampora, we’re in Cheever country, with hints of Flannery O’Connor.
Jane Ciabattari - BBC.com
(Starred review.) Acampora’s debut creates a portrait of a fictional upscale New York suburb, Old Cranbury, through a series of linked stories that are intelligent, unnerving, and very often strange…In each story, Acampora examines the tensions, longings, and mild lunacies.... [Wonder Garden] rendered in crisp prose and drawing on extensive architectural detail—is as irresistible as it is disturbing.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) The stories in Acampora’s first collection are so vivid, tightly plotted, and expertly woven that they make you look forward to reading more by this accomplished author.
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Acampora wields prose with the precision of a scalpel, insightfully dissecting people’s desperate emotions and most cherished hopes.... Acampora not only meticulously conveys the allure of an outwardly paradisiacal suburban community...she also clearly captures the inner turmoil of its residents...the heartaches and delusions of American suburbanites.
Booklist
(Starred review.) Spooky and fabulous... A cleareyed lens into the strange, human wants of upper-class suburbia.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
Also, consider these LitLovers talking points to help you start a discussion for The Wonder Garden:
1. Talk about the various stories and characters: which ones do you relate to more than others? Do you find some (characters and stories) more likable and engaging or more off-putting than others?
2. What do these stories suggest about seemingly normal individuals who populate the suburbs? Do most of us harbor secrets or hidden pasts that seem unshakable? Are we all as flawed as Acampora's characters? Or are these peoples' disillusionment and inner struggles more deeply rooted than our own? Did you at some point wonder why these well-to-do people can't be happy? Why can't they?
3. Do you find any of these stories ironic? What about the irony, for instance, with John, whose work as a house inspector depends on his strict attention to detail? How does that professional skill translate to his personal life?
4. In what way does Acampora build a sense of community in Old Cranberry? Are you able to remember the characters who appear and reappear in the different stories? Is Old Cranberry a place you would like to live?
5. What is the author's take on American culture—consumerism, for instance?
6. If you're a devotee of the TV series Mad Men, or of John Cheever's stories, do you see any parallels to Acampora's stories?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)
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The Sellout
Paul Beatty, 2015
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
304 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250083258
Summary
Winner, 2016 Man Booker Prize
Winner, 2016 National Book Critics Circle Award
A biting satire about a young man's isolated upbringing and the race trial that sends him to the Supreme Court, Paul Beatty's The Sellout showcases a comic genius at the top of his game.
It challenges the sacred tenets of the United States Constitution, urban life, the civil rights movement, the father-son relationship, and the holy grail of racial equality—the black Chinese restaurant.
Born in the "agrarian ghetto" of Dickens—on the southern outskirts of Los Angeles—the narrator of The Sellout resigns himself to the fate of lower-middle-class Californians: "I'd die in the same bedroom I'd grown up in, looking up at the cracks in the stucco ceiling that've been there since '68 quake."
Raised by a single father, a controversial sociologist, he spent his childhood as the subject in racially charged psychological studies. He 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. All that's left is the bill for a drive-thru funeral.
Fuelled by this deceit and the general disrepair of his hometown, the narrator sets out to right another wrong: Dickens has literally been removed from the map to save California from further embarrassment.
Enlisting the help of the town's most famous resident—the last surviving Little Rascal, Hominy Jenkins—he initiates the most outrageous action conceivable: reinstating slavery and segregating the local high school, which lands him in the Supreme Court. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1962
• Where—Los Angeles, California, USA
• Education—M.F.A., Brooklyn College; M.A., Boston University;
• Currently—New York, New York
Paul Beatty is a contemporary American author. He received his MFA in creative writing from Brooklyn College and an MA in psychology from Boston University. He is a 1980 graduate of El Camino Real High School in Woodland Hills, California.
Poetry
In 1990, Paul Beatty was crowned the first ever Grand Poetry Slam Champion of the Nuyorican Poets Cafe. One of the prizes for winning that championship was a book deal—which resulted in his first volume of poetry, Big Bank Takes Little Bank.
This was followed by another book of poetry Joker, Joker, Deuce and appearances performing his poetry on MTV and PBS (in the series The United States of Poetry).
In 1993, he was awarded a grant from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts Grants to Artists Award.
Fiction
His first novel, The White Boy Shuffle received a positive review in the New York Times, whose reviewer, Richard Bernstein, called the book "a blast of satirical heat from the talented heart of black American life."
His second book, Tuff received a positive notice in Time magazine. In 2006, Beatty edited an anthology of African-American humor called Hokum and wrote an article in the New York Times on the same subject.
His 2008 novel Slumberland was about an American DJ in Berlin.
In The Sellout, released in 2015, Beatty returns to Los Angeles, to a fictional neighborhood called Dickens, for this novel about an urban farmer who tries to spearhead a return to slavery and segregation. (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 11/17/2015.)
Book Reviews
The first 100 pages of [Paul Beatty's] new novel, The Sellout, are the most caustic and the most badass first 100 pages of an American novel I've read in at least a decade. I gave up underlining the killer bits because my arm began to hurt.... [They] read like the most concussive monologues and interviews of Chris Rock, Richard Pryor and Dave Chappelle wrapped in a satirical yet surprisingly delicate literary and historical sensibility.... The jokes come up through your spleen.... The riffs don't stop coming in this landmark and deeply aware comic novel.... [It] puts you down in a place that's miles from where it picked you up.
Dwight Garner - New York Times
Swiftian satire of the highest order.... Giddy, scathing and dazzling.
Sam Sacks - Wall Street Journal
[The Sellout] is among the most important and difficult American novels written in the 21st century.... It is a bruising novel that readers will likely never forget.
Kiese Laymon - Los Angeles Times
The Sellout isn't just one of the most hilarious American novels in years, it also might be the first truly great satirical novel of the century.... [It] is a comic masterpiece, but it's much more than just that-it's one of the smartest and most honest reflections on race and identity in America in a very long time.
Michael Schaub - NPR.org
Beatty’s satirical latest is a droll, biting look at racism in modern America.... Beatty gleefully...question[s] what exactly constitutes black identity in America. Wildly funny but deadly serious, Beatty’s caper is populated by outrageous caricatures, and its damning social critique carries the day.
Publishers Weekly
Beatty, author of the deservedly highly praised The White Boy Shuffle (1996), here outdoes himself and possibly everybody else in a send-up of race, popular culture, and politics in today's America . . . Beatty hits on all cylinders in a darkly funny, dead-on-target, elegantly written satire . . . [The Sellout] is frequently laugh-out-loud funny and, in the way of the great ones, profoundly thought provoking. A major contribution. —Mark Levin
Library Journal
Beatty has never been afraid to stir the pot when it comes to racial and socioeconomic issues, and his latest is no different. In fact, this novel is his most incendiary, and readers unprepared for streams of racial slurs...in the service of satire should take a pass.... Another daring, razor-sharp novel from a writer with talent to burn.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
1. Do you find this book offensive? Why or why not? What other readers might take offense at The Sellout? Why is Paul Beatty's language so incendiary?
2. in his lengthy Barnes & Noble review, Stefan Beck says that The Sellout will "shock all of us into reexamining what we think we know about race in America." Did the book have that effect on you? Did it alter how you, personally, view black-white relations in the US?
3. What is the thematic significance (and humor) in the fact that the father of the book's narrator dropped the double-e from his last name, resulting in the surname Me—and, thus, the title of the Supreme Court case, Me vs. the United States?
4. How off-putting, or difficult, did you find the first 300 pages or so of this book? Was it difficult to follow the narrative thread, to get your "fictional footing"? Why might the author have opened his book with this stylistic technique?
5. What is the purpose of instituting slavery? What does Me hope to accomplish by doing so?
6. What do you think of the white woman who utters this: "[Y]ou're a beautiful woman who just happens to be black, and you're far too smart not to know that it isn't race that's the problem but class"? What do you think of her statement? What do you think the author thinks of it?
7. What about academia? What does Beatty think of black intellectuals and, particularly, the attempt to sanitize Twain's classic?
I also improved Jim's diction, rejiggered the plotline a bit, and retitled the book The Pejorative-Free Adventures and Intellectual and Spiritual Journeys of African-American Jim and His Young Protege, White Brother Huckleberry Finn, as They Go in Search of the Lost Black Family Unit.
(By the way, pay attention to the use of the word "rejiggered.")
8. What is the title's significance? First, what is a sellout?—define it. What is being sold out...or who is being sold out...and who is doing the selling out?
(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)