First published 2021
Darren is twenty-two and content with his simple life. He works at Starbucks in a Midtown office building, lives with his mother in a Bed-Stuy brownstone, and spends time with his girlfriend Soraya. His mother wishes he would use his potential as valedictorian of Bronx Science, but Darren feels no ambition. Everything shifts when he meets Rhett Daniels, the smooth-talking CEO of Sumwun, NYC's hottest tech startup. Daniels invites Darren to join an elite sales team on the thirty-sixth floor. After surviving a brutal training week, Darren becomes the company's only Black employee. He reinvents himself as Buck, a merciless salesman his friends and family wouldn't recognize. When tragedy strikes at home and Buck reaches his lowest point, he devises a scheme to help young people of color break into America's sales industry. His plan triggers events that change everything. This satirical novel dissects ambition and race in America's corporate world.
Genres: fiction, satire, business, african-american, contemporary, 21st-century
Vibes: intimate, satirical, thought-provoking
Tropes: reinvention, social-climbing
Setting: Bed-Stuy, Bronx Science, Midtown, NYC, Sumwun
Period: 22nd Century
400 pages · Hardcover · Houghton Mifflin Harcourt