by Paul Beatty
First published 2021
Winston "Tuffy" Foshay is nineteen, weighs 320 pounds, and leads his crew through Spanish Harlem. He's a new father trying to answer his wife Yolanda's persistent question about his future plans. After fainting during a botched drug deal that nearly kills him, Winston realizes he needs direction. His adoptive mother Inez presents an unexpected solution: she'll pay him twenty thousand dollars to run for city council. Winston accepts and launches into an unprecedented political campaign. He navigates this new world with help from his scheming disabled friend Fariq, his Beat poet Black Panther father Clifford, the Marxist Inez who raised him, and his confused Big Brother mentor Rabbi Spencer Jefferson. The campaign becomes more than a money grab as Winston discovers how politics can reshape both his understanding of his community and his role within it.
Genres: fiction, american-fiction, african-american, contemporary
Vibes: emotional, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, underdog
Setting: Spanish Harlem
Period: Contemporary
272 pages · Paperback · Picador