Tuff - Hardcover

The author of The White Boy Shuffle returns with a witty, unproarious comic novel about a nineteen-year-old kid who is bribed to run for city council by his mentor, an African-American rabbi named Spencer Jefferson. 40,000 first printing.

e ferocious wit, outrageous comedy, and flat-out rage that made his debut novel, The White Boy Shuffle, one of the most passionately reviewed books of 1996 ("A blast of satirical heat from the talented heart of Black American life" --New York Times; "As much in the tradition of Richard Pryor as Ralph Ellison" --The Village Voice), Tuff unleashes Paul Beatty's verbal dazzle and nothing-sacred sensibility on the story of a young black man coming of age on the streets and stoops of Spanish Harlem.

Nineteen-year-old, 320-pound Winston "Tuffy" Foshay -- player king of a motley crew that includes his scheming, disabled best friend, Fariq, otherwise known as Smush; his Beat-poet, Black Panther father, Clifford; Inez, the unreconstructed Marxist revolutionary who raised him; and his bewildered mentor from the Big Brother program, the hapless African-American rabbi Spencer Throckmorton -- is ready to make a change. S