Tuff Audiobook By Paul Beatty cover art

Tuff

A Novel

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Tuff

By: Paul Beatty
Narrated by: Prentice Onayemi
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As fast-paced and hard-edged as the Harlem streets it portrays, Tuff shows off all of the amazing skill that Paul Beatty showed off in his first novel, The White Boy Shuffle.

Weighing in at 320 pounds, Winston "Tuffy" Foshay, is an East Harlem denizen who breaks jaws and shoots dogs and dreams of millions from his idea, Cap'n Crunch: The Movie, starring Danny DeVito. His best friend is a disabled Muslim who wants to rob banks, his guiding light is an ex-hippie Asian woman who worked for Malcolm X, and his wife, Yolanda, he married from jail over the phone.

Shrewdly comical as this dazzling novel is, it turns acerbically sublime when the frustrated Tuffy agrees to run for City Council. Smartly irreverent and edgily fierce, Tuff is a bona fide original.

© Cover photo: Saul Fletcher

©2001 Paul Beatty (P)2016 Audible, Inc. African American Literature & Fiction Satire Comedy Literary Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction Witty Banking

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I stopped after the first six chapters, because it was just too tedious and a little dull. I love this narrator, and he definitely did not disappoint. The previous Beatty book that I read “The Sellout” was really over-the-top great, but this one by comparison is…… mediocre. I’m sorry I cannot really recommend the story. If you want to listen to great narration, listen to The Sellout instead of this one.

Tedious and prolonged

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Beatty is as funny as Mark Twain. Tuffy is a great character. His posse are the Keystone Kops in reverse. So many ideas on the air, a juggler of words and you’ll laugh out loud.

High Larry Us!

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The beauty of this story is our protagonist isn't a conquering hero, he's denotatively an antihero. An antihero without a direct villain to fight, or a sword of Damocles hanging over his head. At least no more than the rest of us...Tuffy is a dude, living his life trying to make it from A to B like most of us. His glory is in the mundanity of interactions with people from the block. Even though many on the block would love to stir well clear of his "triumphs". The story has humor, heart, and the kind of hilarious absurdity we fail to observe and appreciate in our own lives when not reflecting through the prism of story, song or film. Experiencing the tightly woven relationships and foolhardy falibility of this cast of characters is like stumbling into a random family reunion, and recognizing "that" Aunt, the crazy Uncle and scheming cousin. It's all the people from the reunion that give this piece color and texture, and I was more than happy to explore all of its contours and complexities.

As with his narration of The White Boy Shuffle Prentice Onayemi did the daggone thing. He gives unique voice and personality to each character. I highly recommend this book, well done Paul Beatty.

Paul Beatty did it again! Tuffy gets my vote...

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