Synopses & Reviews
From the acclaimed author of
Shackling Water comes the first great race novel of the twenty-first century, an incendiary and ruthlessly funny satire about violence, pop culture, and American identity.
Macon Detornay is a suburban white boy possessed and politicized by black culture, and filled with rage toward white America. After moving to New York City for college, Macon begins robbing white passengers in his taxicab, setting off a manhunt for the black man presumed to be committing the crimes. When his true identity is revealed, Macon finds himself to be a celebrity and makes use of the spotlight to hold forth on the evils and invisibility of whiteness. Soon he launches the Race Traitor Project, a stress-addled collective that attracts guilty liberals, wannabe gangstas, and bandwagon riders from all over the country to participate in a Day of Apology a day set aside for white people to make amends for four hundred years of oppression. The Day of Apology pushes New York City over the edge into an epic riot, forcing Macon to confront the depth of his own commitment to the struggle.
Peopled with all manner of race pimps and players, Angry Black White Boy is a stunning breakout book from a critically acclaimed young writer and should be required reading for anyone who wants to get under the skin of the complexities of identity in America.
Review
"Angry Black White Boy is an insanely smart novel that pulls no punches. Adam Mansbach understands that race is a cultural construct and that authenticity is, sadly, a commodity. His vision is wild, comic, and dark. This is a really funny book." Percival Everett, author of Erasure
Review
"There are no safe places left: with dark humor and vivid insight, Adam Mansbach has challenged everything we thought we knew about race in this country. Startling, subversive, and raucous, Angry Black White Boy is a novel about how we became who we are, and why that's not good enough." Daniel Alarcón, author of War by Candlelight
Review
"Angry Black White Boy is bananas! Actually, it's a banana split with razor blades in it. Adam Mansbach is the white Richard Wright, and Angry Black White Boy is our generation's Native Son." William "Upski" Wimsatt, author of Bomb the Suburbs and No More Prisons
Review
"Angry White Black Boy is all about collisions between hip-hop and its past, blackness and whiteness, 'keeping it real' and the absurdity of reality. With this brutal, hilarious, and tragic novel, Adam Mansbach proves once again he is one of the most ambitious, insightful, and daring writers of our generation." Jeff Chang, author of Can't Stop Won't Stop: A History of the Hip-Hop Generation
Review
"Angry Black White Boy is full of hilariously twisted racial politics. Adam Mansbach is like a wigger Ishmael Reed running wild through the world of hip hop." Touré, author of Soul City
Synopsis
Macon Detornay is a suburban white boy who is possessed by the subcultures of black art and life. After moving to New York for his freshman year at Columbia, Macon's love of black culture curdles into a rage that he at first directs at the white passengers in the back of the cab he drives. (Naturally, all of his victims assume their assailant is a black man and Macon goes undetected.) But Macon soon channels his anger in other directions and finds himself leading a movement of self-loathing white people organizing the Race Traitor Project, and hatching a plan for a National Day of Apology. None of this goes well for black folks, white folks, and least of all for Macon. A wildly creative and darkly comic meditation on the meaning of identity racial and otherwise Angry Black White Boy is a stunning breakout book from a writer whose edgy sense of humor, keen ear for contemporary language, and skewed take on American pop culture will appeal to readers of Colson Whitehead, Chuck Palahniuk, and Jonathan Lethem.
Synopsis
From the critically acclaimed author of Shackling Water comes an incendiary and ruthlessly funny novel about violence, pop culture, and identity in 21st-century America.
About the Author
Adam Mansbach is the author of the novel Shackling Water and the poetry collection genius b-boy cynics getting weeded in the garden of delights.