Black Buck

This is a satirical novel about race and America, using tech companies but specifically the sales side as as its lens. If I had to be cute about it I would say it's like Sorry to Bother You meets American Psycho.

It's genuinely funny and thought-provoking in parts, and made me cringe (in a bad way) in others. I think the author's pen is its sharpest when he's depicting startup life and its intersections with race. I've been the only non-white person in the room in many, many startup meetings and offices. Askaripour doesn't quite push things into the magical realist sci fi of Sorry to Bother You -- instead he takes things right up to the edge of absurdity, but not over it. Ultimately all the racism he depicts from the well-meaning and clueless to the consciously vindictive is stuff that I've witnessed first-hand. I have been in the office when "Fuck the Police" comes on over the speakers during the Friday afternoon wind-down and white guys forcefully rap along and make sure to enunciate the N-word extra EXTRA loudly. I have been in conversations where white guys go on and on about the "culture fit" of a perfectly good job candidate. I have been in arguments with engineers who playfully advocate for eugenics. There is an office "prank" described early in the book involving paint that might seem too mean-spirited and too overtly racist in its symbolism to happen in real life, but, frankly... I would believe it if someone told me it happened to them.

Those are the great parts. The cringey parts, for me, were where I felt I had accidentally wandered into a (very smart) book for teenagers, full of melodrama and lessons that are wrapped up maybe a little too neatly for the reader. I was also never sure about the book's conceit of the occasional fourth-wall breaking bit where the narrator interrupts the story to give us a little bit of business advice. Sometimes it worked well, sometimes I rolled my eyes.

I'm also not sure of where I think the book ultimately lands in terms of what it has to say overall. As I said above I think it's great at depicting many of the problems in the startup world. I'm not sure I'm sold on the book's third act where it tries to do something about it. The book seems to be pretty solidly focused on Blackness but by the third act seems to talk more about issues facing all people of color, and I'm not sure if that was an intentional "wrong turn" taken by the main character or if it's trying to say something (though not sure what, given how it all ends) about the necessity or possibility of cross-racial solidarity-building. Although I suppose I was just complaining that the lessons were sometimes a little too neatly wrapped up, so I guess this is an example of that not being the case! I would give this book like.... 4.5 stars, but I'm second-guessing as to whether it's my shortcomings as a reader moreso than the author's shortcomings as a writer.

Ultimately this book passes the main test of what I want from any story I'm told: I'm going to be thinking about it long, long after today. I would certainly recommend it, especially if you've ever worked in tech and looked around and thought, "This is fucking insane."