Tuff

by Paul Beatty

Book Overview

From Paul Beatty, the author of the Man Booker Prize winner The Sellout, comes Tuff, a novel as fast-paced and hard-edged as the Harlem streets it portrays. Age nineteen and weighing in at 320 pounds,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385721110
• ISBN13: 9780385721110
• Release Date: August 2001
• Publisher: Anchor Books
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.2" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Get over it

This is a really complex book I wouldn't recommend to someone who isn't used to dealing with issues related to race, as clearly some of the reviewers here are more focused on whether or not they were offended than what Paul Beatty is trying to say about life, literature and identity. Those reviewers who are stuck on the race issue would be wise to note that when asked to address the differences between black people and white people, Rabbi Spencer Throckmorton can only come up with two trivial differences: white people eat ice cream in the winter, and black people wait till you get inside your house before they drive off. The point of this statement is not to make two absolute declarations, but highlight what really makes us different most of the time: culture and class. If you don't understand this book or think its racist, you're just not paying attention.

If you ask me, Beatty is batting 1.000

Evidence of a sophomore slump is nowhere to be found with TUFF. In my view, Paul Beatty has climbed a rung or two beyond THE WHITE BOY SHUFFLE. The corpulent street-wise protagonist of TUFF, Winston "Tuffy" Foshay, is introduced as a young man without an obvious plan getting by with his wife and son through wits, brawn and an affinity for art house cinema. Immediately after a narrow escape from the hereafter while earning his keep as enforcer for drug dealers, Tuff surmises he needs an alternative future strategy. By default and convenience rather than commitment or geniune desire, he decides to run for City Council. Gradually, in spite of all of the numerable objections he is able to muster, you sense slowly but steadily Tuff is beginning to care about his environs. As events unfold, you meet his eclectic assortment of friends, relatives and external influences, most prominently the multiply-challenged best friend Fariq, a hustler who under different circumstances would prosper downtown on Wall Street; Tuff's forever radical father; the opportunistic but incongruent "Big Brother" Rabbi Spencer Thockmorton; and surrogate mother/mentor Mrs. Nomuri.At times farcical, primarily serious, and wholly relevant to any inner city - this time it happens to be NYC - TUFF is a "The Candidate" with a spin.Beatty clearly understands sometimes less is indeed more, so the similes and metaphors so prominently dispensed in SHUFFLE are less evident, the erudite references are likewise diminished. However, from beginning to denouement the story has greater cohesion than his first novel with no loss of witticisms, sarcasm, cynicism or any shortage of astute observations. Whereas SHUFFLE was a punch to the gut, TUFF is more of a tap on the chin.

WinstionTuff

Winston "Tuffy" Foshay is a great character. He's complex character. He's a deep character. He's a character. His is a period of transition without thunder. A transition not unlike the tide. Slow, yet powerful. Beatty does not manifest the change through the usual gimmicks of death, violence, or mania. Instead he blends disparate elements into a subtle internal movement.Winston's friends not only complement his persona, but they add to the over all tone of the story line. They are reminiscent of the cast in the late '90's film, "Thing To Do in Denver When You're Dead" by Gary Fleder. Intelligent and absurd at the same moment, yet undeniably believable.Winston Foshay took me to a place where I live but have never been. Since Paul Beatty prefers not slap his readers, we are only left with wondering where will Tuff go next.

hilarious and cutting

This book's unsparing honesty and wicked humor might make some uncomfortable, but I haven't laughed this hard over a book in a long, long time. My stomach hurt. Tears rolled from my eyes. It was the best kind of humor -- verging on satire, but not quite -- that holds a mirror up to American culture and forces us to look hard. Nobody is spared in Beatty's vision and he offers no easy answers. The black people are not spit-shined and hot-combed to appeal to white audiences or the positive image police. This is Black culture revealed in all of its complex beauty -- warts and all.

another great one

Tuff is a brilliant follow up to Beatty's debut novel, The White Boy Shuffle. It proves that Beatty is the only writer out there dealing with the complex realities of young black men in a way that is deeply compassionate, and screamingly funny. He never panders to popular, safe visions of black manhood. Besides being wickedly funny, very line in this book is a poetic gem.