H&S Book Club | Black Buck
Black Buck is the debut novel from New Yorker Mateo Askaripour. It delves into the American Dream brought to modern times via what it means to be a black man in a white man’s world, spotting racism even when it’s subtle, and how to sell anyone on almost anything (including yourself). But as Darren surmises, our protagonist in Black Buck, “there’s nothing like a Black salesman on a mission.”
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.
Of course, you’ll have to read Black Buck to learn how it all plays out. We’ll leave you with a final thought from our CEO, Elizabeth Harrison. “Black Buck is an entertaining, accessible and thorough look at America’s race problem. It’s a necessary read for those living under the weight of oppressive systems as well as for those looking to better understand their complicity within them.”
“An opportunity means change. An opportunity means action. But most of all, an opportunity means the chance of failure. And it’s the potential for failure, more than the failure itself, that stops so many people from beginning anything.”
“It’s the duty of every man and woman who has achieved some success in life to pass it on, because when we’re gone, what matters most isn’t what we were able to attain but who we were able to help.”
“‘Can’ nothing grow without fertile soil or the right hands for it. This right here,’ he said, touching a dusty finger to my temple, ‘is soil. Just like this garden. And only you can decide what grows and who you allow to get their hands in it. Understand?’”