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The protagonist of this gritty urban tale, Winston Tuffy Foshay, is a grossly overweight burrito-gin guzzling foul-mouth delinquent of Spanish Harlem, New York. Surviving in New York's mean streets by hustling, selling dope and conning tourists, Winston is also a husband and a father. The son of a Black Power poet, he is determined to avoid his father's mistakes but doesn't know how. After killing a ferocious dog owned by his childhood Hispanic rivals turned policemen, Tuffy is so shaken that he resolves to find some higher purpose in life. He is persuaded to run for public office by his surrogate mother, Inez, a Japanese American and ex-communist, who offers him $15,000. He is helped by his best friend Fariq, a cripple whose foul language surpasses Tuffy's, and a middle-class African-American Jew, who, after Tuffy's father, is by far the most interesting character. Driven by an improbable plot, Tuff takes many Lenny Bruce-like potshots at New York city's ethnic groups and sexual tendencies. But the novel is saved by Beatty's prose, which combines a streetwise tone with surprisingly frequent allusions to Greek myths, classical literature and Hollywood movies. (Kirkus UK)
Beatty follows up the scorched-earth Afro-American satire of The White Boy Shuffle (1996) with an equally antic look at a brother from East Harlem who runs for City Council. A tree grows in Brooklyn, but its no place for Winston (Tuffy) Foshay, first glimpsed coming around from a fainting fit that providentially took him out of the line of fire that terminated both his employment and his employers in a drug den in The Other Borough. What Winston needs, he soon decides, is some comforts a little closer to home: the loving arms of his wife Yolanda, joined to him in holy matrimony via a dial-a-preacher conference call to his prison ward; the inarticulate embraces of his son Bryce Extraordinaire (Jordy) Foshay; the bemused guidance of his fledgling Big Brother, Rabbi Spencer Throckmorton; the usual round of good-natured tussling with the men and women of East 109th Street; and maybe a political fling. The mad idea is Winstons; the mad money behind it ($15,000, which he thinks of as three months of summer work at $5,000 a month) comes from aging Japanese activist Inez Nomura; but the waggish campaign slogans and strategies seem to sprout from every street corner in the hood. Billing himself as ambivalent on drugs, guns, and alcohol in the community, against cats in the supermercados, and anti-cop, anti-cop, anti-cop, Winston, who knows everyone in the district, doesnt seem to ignite much more fervor than Steve Forbes, his equally surreal real-life opposite. Even Beatty himself seems no better able than his short-attention-span hero to focus on the election, which keeps getting elbowed aside by rollicking riffs on three-card monte, tales of inner-city white ethnics and black transvestites, and a gorgeous black/Jewish insult match. The flabby plot is encrusted with jewels on every page. And if the race for city council can barely hold the candidates attention, thats the punch line of Beattys richest joke. (First printing of 40,000) (Kirkus Reviews)
Product Description
Nineteen year old Winston 'Tuffy' Foshay, 22 stone, new father to a baby boy and player-king in a motley crew in Spanish Harlem, is looking for a purpose in life. A new comedy for America's hippest young talent.
The protagonist of this gritty urban tale, Winston Tuffy Foshay, is a grossly overweight burrito-gin guzzling foul-mouth delinquent of Spanish Harlem, New York. Surviving in New York's mean streets by hustling, selling dope and conning tourists, Winston is also a husband and a father. The son of a Black Power poet, he is determined to avoid his father's mistakes but doesn't know how. After killing a ferocious dog owned by his childhood Hispanic rivals turned policemen, Tuffy is so shaken that he resolves to find some higher purpose in life. He is persuaded to run for public office by his surrogate mother, Inez, a Japanese American and ex-communist, who offers him $15,000. He is helped by his best friend Fariq, a cripple whose foul language surpasses Tuffy's, and a middle-class African-American Jew, who, after Tuffy's father, is by far the most interesting character. Driven by an improbable plot, Tuff takes many Lenny Bruce-like potshots at New York city's ethnic groups and sexual tendencies. But the novel is saved by Beatty's prose, which combines a streetwise tone with surprisingly frequent allusions to Greek myths, classical literature and Hollywood movies. (Kirkus UK)
Beatty follows up the scorched-earth Afro-American satire of The White Boy Shuffle (1996) with an equally antic look at a brother from East Harlem who runs for City Council. A tree grows in Brooklyn, but its no place for Winston (Tuffy) Foshay, first glimpsed coming around from a fainting fit that providentially took him out of the line of fire that terminated both his employment and his employers in a drug den in The Other Borough. What Winston needs, he soon decides, is some comforts a little closer to home: the loving arms of his wife Yolanda, joined to him in holy matrimony via a dial-a-preacher conference call to his prison ward; the inarticulate embraces of his son Bryce Extraordinaire (Jordy) Foshay; the bemused guidance of his fledgling Big Brother, Rabbi Spencer Throckmorton; the usual round of good-natured tussling with the men and women of East 109th Street; and maybe a political fling. The mad idea is Winstons; the mad money behind it ($15,000, which he thinks of as three months of summer work at $5,000 a month) comes from aging Japanese activist Inez Nomura; but the waggish campaign slogans and strategies seem to sprout from every street corner in the hood. Billing himself as ambivalent on drugs, guns, and alcohol in the community, against cats in the supermercados, and anti-cop, anti-cop, anti-cop, Winston, who knows everyone in the district, doesnt seem to ignite much more fervor than Steve Forbes, his equally surreal real-life opposite. Even Beatty himself seems no better able than his short-attention-span hero to focus on the election, which keeps getting elbowed aside by rollicking riffs on three-card monte, tales of inner-city white ethnics and black transvestites, and a gorgeous black/Jewish insult match. The flabby plot is encrusted with jewels on every page. And if the race for city council can barely hold the candidates attention, thats the punch line of Beattys richest joke. (First printing of 40,000) (Kirkus Reviews)
Product Description
Nineteen year old Winston 'Tuffy' Foshay, 22 stone, new father to a baby boy and player-king in a motley crew in Spanish Harlem, is looking for a purpose in life. A new comedy for America's hippest young talent.
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