Summary:
An unambitious twenty-two-year-old, Darren lives in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother, who wants nothing more than to see him live up to his potential as the valedictorian of Bronx Science. But Darren is content working at Starbucks in the lobby of a Midtown office building, hanging out with his girlfriend, Soraya, and eating his mother’s home-cooked meals. All that changes when a chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of Sumwun, NYC’s hottest tech startup, results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team on the thirty-sixth floor.
After enduring a “hell week” of training, Darren, the only Black person in the company, reimagines himself as “Buck,” a ruthless salesman unrecognizable to his friends and family. But when things turn tragic at home and Buck feels he’s hit rock bottom, he begins to hatch a plan to help young people of color infiltrate America’s sales force, setting off a chain of events that forever changes the game.
My take: 3 looks
I had to think about my review for a couple of weeks before writing it. There was so much that bothered me about this book, and the portrayal of white people (in general). I needed to take a step back and check myself.
And that’s probably exactly what Mateo Askaripour intended. The main character is a young black man who lives with his mom. They have a very sweet relationship, with him working at a local Starbucks, and her working with chemicals in a Clorox plant. There is a best friend, a love interest, and a few older men in the neighborhood who offer unsolicited, but solid, advice.
One day, he meets the founder of a very successful sales company, who sees promise in Darren, who is now called “Buck”, the nickname he gets from the rich white man who hires him. And everything changes.
Definitely read the book. There are hints of Glengarry Glen Ross when four new hires start their training. All of the sales people are white, and they show their white privilege in various ways. Maybe it’s because I am a 54 year old woman who doesn’t give a shit what I say to anyone, have a history of speaking truth to power, and am myself steeped in white privilege, but I bristled over and over at the way management treated Darren. Racist comments, stereotypes, and assumptions were thick in a very open and accepted way. If Darren called them on it, they were shocked and appalled that he would “play the race card” and accuse him of seeing color-based aggression when they denied any. And no one spoke up. No one called management on it. No one stood up to the bully.
In spite of his overwhelming success, the VP of Training always seems to have it in for Darren, trying to pull his proverbial chair out from under him at every turn, trying to make him look bad in front of others. But that’s not Darren’s only issue. As his wealth has increased, his connections to his old life have decreased. There are several lessons here, but the notion throughout the novel that whites have a sort of racial impunity in our words, behaviors, and actions sat roughly with me. Is this how we are seen? Is this how the majority of us act? Do these words and attitudes come from me?
I will probably read this one again in a few years because I will want to see how it ages, along with how I age. I have a feeling that some of the other points that Askaripour makes in his story will hit home with me in the way that the race issue has impressed upon me this time.
Recommended.
