âBeatty insistently finds poetry in the projects, dignity on the street.â Guardian
âBeattyâs blunt, impious, streetwise eloquence [is] transfixingâ New York Times
âThe writing here is seamless and teeming with momentumâ New York Times Book Review
Winston âTuffyâ Foshay is a 19-year-old, 24-stone âplayer-kingâ to a hapless gang in Spanish Harlem, a denizen who breaks jaws and shoots dogs. His best friend is a disabled Muslim man who wants to rob banks, his guiding light is an ex-hippie Asian woman who worked for Malcolm X, and his wife he married over the phone whilst in jail. When the frustrated Tuffy agrees to run for City Council, so begins a zany, riotous concoction of nonstop hip-hop chatter and brilliant mainstream social satire, as the indomitable Beatty again demonstrates why he is hailed as one of the shrewdest cultural commentators and hilarious cutups of his generation.