"About 15 pages into Paul Beatty’s The Sellout: A Novel, I had the great realization that this book was different, so I started over to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. It’s laugh-out-loud funny over and over because it’s shocking and unpredictable, but even more amazing is the feeling of familiarity that comes from the narrator’s voice. Why do I feel like I know this guy? I don’t. According to Wikipedia, Beatty is from Los Angeles and (also according to Wikipedia) I am from Washington DC, so it’s not some hyper-local humor (that was my first guess). Also according to Wikipedia he was born in 1962, and I was born in 1978… so we’re not of the same hyper-small generation (apparently “X-enial” is the lame term for me… Caught between those damned cynical Gen-Xers and those damned faux-sincere Millennials [Wikipedia]). So there goes my second guess. So what is it? The truth is, I’ve thought about it and I don’t know. Apparently he said he wrote it “because he was broke,” and something transcends in the back-to-the-wall, earnest rawness that could only come from someone who feels like they might have nothing to lose. This book takes on the very sensitive and heated subject of race relations in America. A New York Times interview quotes him as saying “I feel like there is a point to be made… [but] I don’t know what it is.” I will leave it there and not try to analyze what the book’s point might be. I will say that it is profoundly powerful and heavy, precisely because it is so funny and unpredictable — and that is why I think it’s the greatest piece of art created this decade."

"I was into so much stuff around this time. It was 1981 and I was 12, turning 13 at the end of the year. I loved Duran Duran and Associates, 2 Tone stuff, ABC, The Jam... it didn't really matter then. You didn't have to be part of any tribe. We had them, but we never called them mods or rockers or whatever. We had the Sweats - they were the heavy guys who used to sit in a circle and smoke dope on the school field. They liked Motörhead and they all stank of patchouli oil. But they were all very friendly. Then there the Smoothies - they were more like mods really. Very tidy and neat, with these wedge haircuts. But I could never really do that. I could be one thing one day, and something else the next. I liked 'Ace Of Spades' at the same time as liking 'Planet Earth'. It was all the same thing. I remember being in class and we were all talking about 'Love Action', and singing the middle bit - "I believe, I believe what the old man says...", which I thought was profoundly wise at the time. It's still pretty good. I like the line, "I believe in truth/ Though I lie a lot." The noises in the intro really intrigued me. And for a while I did put the air guitar down and get my mum's ironing board out and play the synths on that. The music's quite cold - it's quite a cold groove for a love song. And it is a love song. His voice is kind of warm, but he's got such authority - you believe everything he's singing. At the end of that year, when Dare came out, everybody had it. It was great."