A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick
An Indie Next Pick
Apple's Best of January
Amazon's Spotlight Best Pick of the Month
One of Barnes & Noble Reads "Most Anticipated for January"
One of Entertainment Weekly's "Best Books to Keep You Warm this January"
One of Washington Post's "10 Books to Read in January"
One of Fortune's "Best Books for January"
One of Shondaland's "Best Five Books for January"
One of Essence's "21 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2021"
One of WIRED's "Picks for the 10 Books You Have to Read This Winter"
One of Vulture's "46 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2021"
One of Elle's "55 Best Books to Read in 2021"
One of Marie Claire's "29 Best New 2021 Books"
One of Vanity Fair's "Books to Get You Through Winter"
One of E! Online's "17 Books to Add to Your Reading List in January"
One of The Root's "PageTurners: We're in for a Hell of Year"
One of AV Club's "5 New Books to Read in January"
One of Cosmopolitan's "Best New Books 2021"
One of the New York Post's "Best New Books to Read"
One of PopSugar's "Books Everyone Will Be Talking About in 2021"
One of Literary Hub's "Most Anticipated Books of the Year"
One of Parade's "Best New Books to Read this Winter"
One of PopSugar's "Best Books of January"
One of Book Riot's "10 Propulsive 2021 Books Everyone Will Be Talking About"
One of Poets & Writer's "New and Noteworthy"
One of SheReads' "The Best 12 Books of Winter"
One of Alma's "Favorite Books for Winter 2021"
One of Book Riot's "January Book Recommendations"
One of Black Business Guide's "21 Books by Black Writers to Read in 2021"
One of Debutiful's "10 Debut Books You Should Read this January"
One of Write or Die Tribe's "21 Books We Can't Wait to Read in 2021"
One of Sunday Evening Post's "10 Books to Start 2021"
One of Grit Daily's "Best Books of 2021"
A Skimm Reads PickA New York Times Bestseller
A Read with Jenna Today Show Book Club Pick!
"Askaripour closes the deal on the first page of this mesmerizing novel, executing a high wire act full of verve and dark, comic energy."
--Colson Whitehead, author of The Nickel Boys
"A hilarious, gleaming satire as radiant as its author. Askaripour has announced himself as a major talent of the school of Ralph Ellison, Paul Beatty, Fran Ross, and Ishmael Reed. Full of quick pacing, frenetic energy, absurd--yet spot on--twists and turns, and some of the funniest similes I've ever read, this novel is both balm and bomb."
--Nafissa Thompson-Spires, author of Heads of the Colored People
For fans of Sorry to Bother You and The Wolf of Wall Street--a crackling, satirical debut novel about a young man given a shot at stardom as the lone Black salesman at a mysterious, cult-like, and wildly successful startup where nothing is as it seems.
There's nothing like a Black salesman on a mission.
An unambitious twenty-two-year-old, Darren lives in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother, who wants nothing more than to see him live up to his potential as the valedictorian of Bronx Science. But Darren is content working at Starbucks in the lobby of a Midtown office building, hanging out with his girlfriend, Soraya, and eating his mother's home-cooked meals. All that changes when a chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of Sumwun, NYC's hottest tech startup, results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team on the thirty-sixth floor.
After enduring a "hell week" of training, Darren, the only Black person in the company, reimagines himself as "Buck," a ruthless salesman unrecognizable to his friends and family. But when things turn tragic at home and Buck feels he's hit rock bottom, he begins to hatch a plan to help young people of color infiltrate America's sales force, setting off a chain of events that forever changes the game.
Black Buck is a hilarious, razor-sharp skewering of America's workforce; it is a propulsive, crackling debut that explores ambition and race, and makes way for a necessary new vision of the American dream.