Black Buck
Author: Mateo Askaripour
Published by: John Murray Press
Pages: 388
Format: Hardback
My Rating ★★★★
Published by: John Murray Press
Pages: 388
Format: Hardback
My Rating ★★★★
My goal is to teach you how to sell. And if I'm half the salesman every newspaper, blog, and hustler in New York City says I am, then you are in luck. With my story, I will give you the tools to go out and create the life you want. Sound fair?
Meet Buck. But before Buck was the Muhammad Ali of sales, floating like a butterfly and selling like a demon, he was Darren: an unambitious twenty-two-year-old living with his mother and working at Starbucks. All that changes when a chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of NYC's hottest tech startup, results in Darren joining Rhett's elite sales team.
On his first day Darren realizes he is the only Black person in the company, and when things start to get strange, he reimagines himself as 'Buck', a ruthless salesman, unrecognizable to his friends and family. Money, partying, and fame soon follow Buck, and wherever he goes more is never enough.
But when tragedy strikes at home, Buck begins to hatch a plan to help young people of colour infiltrate America's sales force, setting off a chain of events that forever changes the game.
An earnest work of satire, Black Buck is a hilarious, razor-sharp skewering of office culture; a propulsive, crackling debut that explores ambition and race, and makes way for a necessary new vision of the American dream.
Meet Buck. But before Buck was the Muhammad Ali of sales, floating like a butterfly and selling like a demon, he was Darren: an unambitious twenty-two-year-old living with his mother and working at Starbucks. All that changes when a chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of NYC's hottest tech startup, results in Darren joining Rhett's elite sales team.
On his first day Darren realizes he is the only Black person in the company, and when things start to get strange, he reimagines himself as 'Buck', a ruthless salesman, unrecognizable to his friends and family. Money, partying, and fame soon follow Buck, and wherever he goes more is never enough.
But when tragedy strikes at home, Buck begins to hatch a plan to help young people of colour infiltrate America's sales force, setting off a chain of events that forever changes the game.
An earnest work of satire, Black Buck is a hilarious, razor-sharp skewering of office culture; a propulsive, crackling debut that explores ambition and race, and makes way for a necessary new vision of the American dream.
My thoughts:
The young, bright and black 22-year-old Darren is reasonably content with his life as a barista at a busy Manhattan Starbucks, with his girlfriend, Soraya, although his mother thinks he should be aiming higher and do justice to his talents and abilities.
Thinking that a customer of his would appreciate another drink more than his usual choice, Darren persuades him to change. The customer, Rhett Daniels, is a CEO of a tech start up, Sumwun, he is relentlessly determined that Darren should come work for him on his sales team, and Darren eventually agrees.
Darren an all-white ambitious sales team, which is racist and aggressive, with its ruthless dog-eat-dog culture. He is soon undergoing a hell week of training in this hostile environment and is nicknamed Buck as a reminder of his previous Starbucks job.
He quickly becomes exploited as the face of diversity for the company. Before long, ‘Buck’ changes his entire personality to succeed at sales, shaping a new identity, transforming himself into becoming single-minded and money driven. This leads him to become someone his family and friends no longer recognise. Unclear of the intentions of the company, it is surprising to watch how Darren fully embraces his new persona and loses the closest things and people to him.
The story becomes shocking and cringe worthy on occasions, full of twists and turns, and portrays many of the awful reasons why America struggles when it comes to employing a diverse work force.
The book really packs a punch. It’s sly and satirical at times, while at others it can be shocking and provocative. Not everything that happens is totally believable—which was the one thing I struggled with a tiny bit—but this is built on an all-too-realistic core of the racism, mistreatment and discrimination faced by minorities in the workplace. It also deals with the divide between the person you are becoming and the person those in your life want you to be.
Overall, I think that this was a solid read with great storytelling. The message in this book is going to make some readers feel uncomfortable as it should. I haven’t had a book challenge me like this in a while. Part of me still doesn’t know what to think and part of me still feels like I need to read it again. To be honest, it was a difficult read for me at times, but its core themes could not be more relevant in today’s world.
This book is a powerful, well-written, profoundly thought-provoking novel, presented in the style of a memoir and a self-help sales manual. Black Buck is ultimately the tale of what happens when a young black man tries to emulate a successful white man and loses his soul in the process. It was even more emotional than I'd expected. Well worth a read.
Overall reaction:
The young, bright and black 22-year-old Darren is reasonably content with his life as a barista at a busy Manhattan Starbucks, with his girlfriend, Soraya, although his mother thinks he should be aiming higher and do justice to his talents and abilities.
Thinking that a customer of his would appreciate another drink more than his usual choice, Darren persuades him to change. The customer, Rhett Daniels, is a CEO of a tech start up, Sumwun, he is relentlessly determined that Darren should come work for him on his sales team, and Darren eventually agrees.
Darren an all-white ambitious sales team, which is racist and aggressive, with its ruthless dog-eat-dog culture. He is soon undergoing a hell week of training in this hostile environment and is nicknamed Buck as a reminder of his previous Starbucks job.
He quickly becomes exploited as the face of diversity for the company. Before long, ‘Buck’ changes his entire personality to succeed at sales, shaping a new identity, transforming himself into becoming single-minded and money driven. This leads him to become someone his family and friends no longer recognise. Unclear of the intentions of the company, it is surprising to watch how Darren fully embraces his new persona and loses the closest things and people to him.
The story becomes shocking and cringe worthy on occasions, full of twists and turns, and portrays many of the awful reasons why America struggles when it comes to employing a diverse work force.
The book really packs a punch. It’s sly and satirical at times, while at others it can be shocking and provocative. Not everything that happens is totally believable—which was the one thing I struggled with a tiny bit—but this is built on an all-too-realistic core of the racism, mistreatment and discrimination faced by minorities in the workplace. It also deals with the divide between the person you are becoming and the person those in your life want you to be.
Overall, I think that this was a solid read with great storytelling. The message in this book is going to make some readers feel uncomfortable as it should. I haven’t had a book challenge me like this in a while. Part of me still doesn’t know what to think and part of me still feels like I need to read it again. To be honest, it was a difficult read for me at times, but its core themes could not be more relevant in today’s world.
This book is a powerful, well-written, profoundly thought-provoking novel, presented in the style of a memoir and a self-help sales manual. Black Buck is ultimately the tale of what happens when a young black man tries to emulate a successful white man and loses his soul in the process. It was even more emotional than I'd expected. Well worth a read.
Overall reaction:
