Tuff

Rating:
Summary: Tuff is Tough
Review: After reading White Boy Shuffle, I thought that Tuff would have to be better. It didn't appear to have any of the flaws that Beatty's debut had. The characters appeared to be more fleshed out, and the story more realistic. How wrong I was.

The main problem with this book was that it meandered too much. There is too much in here about the characters' ordinary lives and not enough action. This book never seemed to be have any sense of pacing or direction anywhere, and when the plot did advance, the whole thing seemed kind of forced. As a result, this book reads like a series of vignettes, rather than a unified novel. Also, Beatty's insistence of mixing low and high culture is irritating. One moment, the characters will be talking in ghetto slang, and the next minute, one of them is talking about his love of 1940's French movies. It just kills the mood that Beatty is trying to create.

Beatty obviously has great promise, but he has again failed to live up to it. I cannot recommend this book.

Rating:
Summary: Wow!!
Review: Although I have only been to NYC once I feel like I know it all too well now. Honestly I have not finished your book as yet, but thus far I am impressed and overwhelmed. Your syle is exactly the style I want to achive in my writing, sophisticated and universal, gritty and common all at the same time. You had me laughing so at the airport, I became somewhat of a spectacle. I can't wait to finish so I can read White Boy Shuffle.

When is the book tour? I think Houston would love to have you. I will definitely suggest this book to my book club. This is a welcomed change to all the "AA love me, b/c i am not loved" lit that is floating about.

Keep up the good work. I think you might have a fan for life.

Rating:
Summary: If you ask me, Beatty is batting 1.000
Review: Evidence of a sophomore slump is nowhere to be found with TUFF. In my view, Paul Beatty has climbed a rung or two beyond THE WHITE BOY SHUFFLE.

The corpulent street-wise protagonist of TUFF, Winston "Tuffy" Foshay, is introduced as a young man without an obvious plan getting by with his wife and son through wits, brawn and an affinity for art house cinema. Immediately after a narrow escape from the hereafter while earning his keep as enforcer for drug dealers, Tuff surmises he needs an alternative future strategy. By default and convenience rather than commitment or geniune desire, he decides to run for City Council. Gradually, in spite of all of the numerable objections he is able to muster, you sense slowly but steadily Tuff is beginning to care about his environs.

As events unfold, you meet his eclectic assortment of friends, relatives and external influences, most prominently the multiply-challenged best friend Fariq, a hustler who under different circumstances would prosper downtown on Wall Street; Tuff's forever radical father; the opportunistic but incongruent "Big Brother" Rabbi Spencer Thockmorton; and surrogate mother/mentor Mrs. Nomuri.

At times farcical, primarily serious, and wholly relevant to any inner city - this time it happens to be NYC - TUFF is a "The Candidate" with a spin.

Beatty clearly understands sometimes less is indeed more, so the similes and metaphors so prominently dispensed in SHUFFLE are less evident, the erudite references are likewise diminished. However, from beginning to denouement the story has greater cohesion than his first novel with no loss of witticisms, sarcasm, cynicism or any shortage of astute observations.

Whereas SHUFFLE was a punch to the gut, TUFF is more of a tap on the chin.

Rating:
Summary: Tuff To Read
Review: I must admit that the subject matter described on the inside front cover of the book had me curious enough to give this book a try and I was expecting to enjoy this story, but, unfortunately, besides occasional laughs, and occasional flashes of interesting dialogue, I HATED this book! The author was killing me with his use of language. Between using Spanish throughout the book to his switching from street language to using words over my head, I often found myself confused, frustrated, and bored. I'm not sure if I was supposed to have found a message in this book, but, if there was one, I missed it! Tuffy was an interesting character but I never felt like he or the book went anywhere. It was like I was reading a few days in the life of Winston "Tuffy" Foshay but there really wasn't all that much in the way of a plot. It's a rare occasion when I actually consider putting down a book without finishing it but I was tempted, SEVERAL TIMES, to put this book down and NEVER pick it up again!

Rating:
Summary: Outlandish. Entertaining
Review: In Tuff, Paul Beaty presents us with one of the most unlikely casts of characters you're likely to encounter this year.

We have Winston "Tuffy" Foshay, the 300 pound neighborhood strongman turned politician from Spanish Harlem. His father, an aging Black Panther turned Poet. His mother-figure, a Japanese concentration-camp survivor turned radical activist. Tuffy's multiple sclerosis stricken sidekick. His mentor, a dreadlocked black rabi with a taste for easy listening music and imported lagers. Toss in the token ghetto white-boy and his bank robbing mother, Tuffy's street smart wife, a trio of Puerto Rican triplets (who happen to be cops) and a few of Japanese Sumo wrestlers for good measure and you have Paul Beatty's latest novel.

Not everything here works, but then again how could it? But this is an enjoyable novel with a highly authentic voice. Tuffy is a complex character; a tough-guy from the streets who happens to develop a taste for imported films. He is teetering on the verge of aspiring to higher things, and although he's not an altogether likeable character the reader finds himself pulling for him.

At times the book reads like a string of situation comedy episodes. Here's Tuffy's narrow escape from a drug hit. Then we get Tuffy in the City Council debate. Next: Tuffy sumo wrestles. Not everything ties together seamlessly.

But to save the novel we have Paul Beatty's excellent eye and authentic literary voice. An highly original novel, and entertaining in it's audaciousness.

Rating:
Summary: Even more wow!
Review: Nuff respect due!

I have finished!! Not b/c it dragggggged on, but b/c I have a life. Seriously, Tuff reminded me of Biggie the whole way through. I can't say I agree with the other reviews. The book came off as what I think a book should be. Enough to entertain you. Not enough to give you the entire picture. This leaves room for all kinds of thoughts and it was wonderful.

And like the early movies, it 's cool to be left wondering. Now I walk away wondering if he did when would he know where to go to work? Could he tip off his boys?

Gambate Paul. Now to read the Shuffle.

Holla atcha!

Rating:
Summary: An ode to the Notorious B.I.G.
Review: The interesting question to me is, would this book have been possible had Biggie Smalls not been assassinated?

I ask this because the central character, Winston "Tuffy" Foshay, is so obviously based on Biggie that it is hard not to imagine Smalls whenever Tuff talks. Beatty has taken the hiphop idiom, and placed it onto the page. Almost in the same manner as a DJ placing two records on a set of Technique 1200s. Taking a variety of lifestyles and interests (sumo wrestling, arthouse film) and mix them together seemlessly. And just with the DJ, with Beatty it isn't so much about the destination (how the story ends)....it's about the journey.

I don't buy books that often....because I read too quick.

I am going to buy this book.

Rating:
Summary: Very Funny, Though Not Quite W.B.S.
Review: Tuff is a funny, funny book, and much of the material works, but at times I thought the plot got lost. I thought White Boy Shuffle was one of the best books I've read in the last 10 years, so it was hard for Beatty to meet all my expectations. But still, this book is hilarious.

Rating:
Summary: Tuff is Tough
Review: Tuff is the story of a young man's transformation from a hopeless youth to a man who is willing to try a new way of life. We read the book in a book club and our feelings about the book varied greatly. One member liked how ambitious the characters were in their quest to make money. Another member liked how Beatty forced his readers to question their stereotypes, by constantly placing the characters in unexpected roles. Another member liked how Beatty gives a vivid account of what the less fortunate, when faced with obstacles, are willing to do to improve their living situations and the living situations of people around them. Overall, our book club would reccommend the book.

Rating:
Summary: No lighthearted romp
Review: Unlike Paul Beatty's "White Boy Shuffle", his new novel "Tuff" is no lighthearted satirical romp, but rather a more sombre, hard-edged work with a tone closer to Chester Himes's detective series set in Harlem, and Richard Prices' "Clockers". Where "White Boy Shuffle" was a funny book that said serious things, "Tuff" is a serious book that says funny things. Told from an omniscient point of view, it follows a few months in the life of Winston "Tuffy" Foshay, an alienated young black man who survives a crackhouse shootout, and starts to reappraise his life. A more fully developed character than "White Boy Shuffles'" protagonist Gunnar Kauffman, Winston is a lover of cinema who ironically cannot see the larger picture of life. We are taken into his thoughts, and they are not pretty. Displaying once again his gifts of language, humor, and description, Beatty catches the bleakness, casual violence, and desperate schemes of those in the ghetto in a naturalistic, almost documentary way that is grimly compelling. Many scenes in the book are wonderfully drawn, particularly the intervention scene where Tuff's friends, and family try to help him set a new path. The deep estrangement between Tuff and his father in this scene is both funny and poignant. Following Tuff's adventures is like watching Tony Soprano. Both have the ability to love, and yet are capable of such astonishing violence and brutality, that it is hard to care about their ultimate fate, and as a consequence, while "Tuff" is an extremely well written, more substantial book, it is ultimately less satisfying.