The Sellout has recently won the Man Booker Prize 2016, so I wanted to read it to see what I thought. I must admit, while I was reading the first chapter I was thinking, 'What is going on here, I'm not going to like this'. But you must stick with it, because you will end up enjoying it.
It's hard to sum up in a sentence what the book is about. I tried to explain to a colleague and they just looked at me slightly puzzled as I garbled a disjointed account of the story. They also looked slightly alarmed when I used the words 'funny' and 'racism' in the same sentence. But it's true!
The opening chapter is set in the Supreme Court in America. The case is 'Me v. the United States of America'. The Me in question is Mr Me - originally Mee but over the generations the final letter was dropped. That case title itself is ironic as Mr Me (who is black, and whose first name is never known) is accused of owning a slave, and almost the whole black population of America is mad at him for turning the civil rights clock back so many years.
Now if you are sensitive to racial language or indeed any language at all, you may want to avoid this book, but do bear in mind that the whole book is a satire, full of wit and sarcasm. Mr Me believes in segregation, and to find out why, we are taken through his life starting with him being home-schooled by his father, who would put Me through test scenarios (including electric shock treatments) to test fear, prejudice, servility and obedience. We learn about the small town he grew up in , how it was taken off the map and why he tries to get it back on there. We find out how he gets to 'own' a 'slave', about his girlfriend Marpessa, about the Dum Dum Donut Shop where they hold racism and black inequality talks, and about why an old friend of his father's tries to kill him.
It's a marvellous book like no other - it pushes boundaries and raises eyebrows. It's brilliant.
