We don't get all the way to that tragicomic apocalypse. From the first page to the epilogue, it's a hell of a ride. It is farcical, topical and fueled by a profoundly zany imagination. Like a standup comedian who rules nothing out of bounds, Beatty even turns riots into the stuff of humor. Beatty's satire is deadly.
Nothing is sacred here.
No stereotype goes unexamined. Like Ishmael Reed, Paul Beatty does not really disavow his rage. Like Ishmael Reed before him, Beatty is one of the few writers who can mix slang and scientific terminology and not sound like Damon Wayan's polysyllabic prison polemicist. The White Boy Shuffle is a comic novel with a bite like a great white shark. It reopens old wounds so fiendishly that you can1t laugh without crying.