The White Boy Shuffle

About this book

Paul Beatty on the basis of two slim collections of poetry - Big Bank Take Little Bank and Joker Joker Deuce - has been called "a West Coast word wizard" and the "poet laureate of Generation X." The White Boy Shuffle is a moving deft satire on issues of race as well as the tale of the coming of age of Gunnar Kaufman a contemporary African American who is in no way typical. Unequivocally and without apology Gunnar states that he is not the seventh son of a seventh son of a seventh son. Indeed he wishes he were but fate has shorted him by six brothers and three uncles cruelly cheating him out of his mythological inheritance. And thus unforgettably begins the story of Gunnars rocky expedition to manhood. With his unparalleled ability to recreate the rhythms of everyday speech to cut mix and recombine language in order to evoke a whole new world of experience Paul Beatty here establishes himself as one of the most original and inventive writers of our time. A combination of literary and street at once intimate and breathtakingly expansive The White Boy Shuffle is a multicultural multigenerational epic that is exuberant engaging and in the moment.