Picture Biggie Smalls--over- overweight, hypersmart, charismatic--as an East Harlem art-film buff instead of a Brooklyn rapper, and you've got a rough idea of Winston (Tuffy) Foshay, the rough-diamond hero of Paul Beatty's wickedly satirical yet touching second novel. Winston graduates from guarding a drug den to running quixotically for city council without losing his bedrock kindness or his eccentric spirit. Beatty knows both pop and elite culture inside out; like "The White Boy Shuffle," his 1996 debut, "Tuff" sometimes gets so busy being funny and knowing that it forgets to move along. (Winston clearing a room of superannuated Black Panthers: "Now bounce! Before you motherf--ers start talking about John Coltrane.") But when he finally gets Winston up and running for office, the Jimmy Stewart moments richly reward our patience: "I ain't saying waste your vote on me, because I ain't the somebody that give a f--k, but you need to vote for somebody." Though Tuffy, F words and all, finally turns out a little too good to be true, you can't help but love a guy who aspires to film "Cap'n Crunch--The Movie." D.G.
TuffPaul Beatty
(Knopf)
259 pages. $23
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
