Thomas's Reviews > Black Buck

Wow, what a ride of a novel. This one reminded me a lot of Disorientation by Elaine Hsieh Chou in terms of how it used satire to make a point. In Black Buck, we follow 22-year-old Darren who’s initially content working as a barista, until he gets an offer to join a fancy tech startup in Manhattan. He’s the only Black person in the company and soon enough starts believing in its mission enough to sell the startup’s promise himself. When things in his personal life take a dark turn, he devises a plan to recruit other young Black people to infiltrate America’s sale force, with devastating repercussions.

I think this novel does a fantastic job of raising important, timely questions: what are the personal, moral, and relational costs of advancing in a predominantly white workforce? Is there a way to advance in a capitalistic society that doesn’t involve dehumanization or exploitation? While the tone and execution of Black Buck is very much a satire, Mateo Askaripour conveys the real and serious themes of race and labor underlying all of the novel’s chaos. Like Chou’s in Disorientation, Askaripour’s writing is fluid and entertaining enough to keep folks flipping the pages even as the plot devolves further into absurdity as the story progresses.

A unique novel. Similar to how I felt with Yellowface by R.F. Kuang, I think it can be hard to feel a deep emotional connection to characters when they’re clearly being used to convey a broader social message within a satire. Still, I liked reading Black Buck and can see it stimulating complex conversations.