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Praise
for Angry Black White Boy
A San Francisco Chronicle
Best Book of 2005
Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights Outstanding
Book of 2005 Award, Honorable Mention
Added to more than 30 college course lists in 2005
"Angry Black White Boy gives new meaning to the term black humor.
A singularly jittery blend of urban wit and southern Gothic, it's a
book of buoyant rhythm and dark material. A novel of ideas above all...
The book covers expansive intellectual and geographical terrain, [and]
its drive never falters. Mansbach gets us there by creating a tense
world whose figures often are at cross-purposes. Angry Black White Boy,
like the truest expressions of hip-hop, graffiti and jazz, is daring
and original. It stings like its hero, Macon Detornay, a self-described
scorpion of race."-- The Boston Globe
"A remarkably successful remix of the traditional race novel. Mansbach
monkey-wrenches the formula of the angry black man in the white man's
world and incisively cuts to the heart of the issue of race in America
today. [Angry Black White Boy] shows us where we as a culture have come
from, the distance we have traveled, and how long the road ahead remains.
It is first-rate satire grounded in the absurd notion that a simple
'I'm sorry' can start to make things better. The novel will make you
laugh, cringe and read until the last page without knowing how it's
going to end. It is difficult to imagine a more appropriate conclusion
for the story of Macon Detornay, as the uncertainty of fiction dovetails
with the uncertainty of reality." -- The San Francisco Chronicle
“Mansbach is an able satirist of race issues… captures vividly
the inhuman sadism inherent to racial violence.” – The
New York Times Book Review
"Angry Black White Boy unflinchingly delves into American racism.
While Mansbach unfurls urban vernacular like a silver-tongued hip hopper
grasping a microphone, he chronicles Detornay's media-injected ascension
and horrific collapse with cinematic vision." -- Washington
Post Express
"A slash and burn novel of race relations in post hip hop America.
Sure to be dissected, reviled, misunderstood and praised for years to
come, which is exactly why you should read it now."-- XLR8R
Magazine
"Painfully hilarious... brilliant... leaves readers searching for
answers amid the absurdity... not for the fainthearted." -- Time
Out New York
“Adam Mansbach has written what will possibly become the quintessential
21st century race novel, despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that
the protagonist is white. A searing and dark tale of appropriated identity
and racial stirring, Angry Black White Boy maintains a hilariously dark
tone throughout.” – Undercover (UK)
"A bold and layered examination of race in Amerca."-- Minneapolis
City Pages
"Is a fresh take on race in America possible? In his breakout novel,Mansbach
definitively answers: Hell yeah! A lyrical and ass-kicking romp."
-- Portland Mercury
“A hilarious, terrifying and brutally honest novel about race
and American identity. Satire at its finest, it should be required reading
for anyone interested in the microscopically thin line between love
and hate that defines race relations in America.” – Milwaukee
Journal Sentinel
"An engaging, cleverly worded tale that finally gives us something
more than the rhetoric-filled fluff being touted as 'hip hop literature.'
An addictively good read comes in the form of Angry Black White Boy
-- cop it." -- Mugshot Magazine
“Boldly confronts the issue of race while brilliantly blending
hip hop, jazz, poetry, street culture, New York,, mid-America and even
baseball to create a highly intense, moving, and original masterpiece.”
– Straight No Chaser (UK)
"Subversive genius... a ferocious punt to the backside that leaves
a Timberland print on your consciousness." — East Bay
Express
"Satirical and often funny… Forget white guilt -- Angry Black
White Boy is full-on white implosion."-- Time Out Chicago
"A novel of high-minded absurdity... a smart, merciless story of
cultural appropriation, racial justice and individual authenticity."
-- Creative Loafing Atlanta
“Genuinely pissed-off, and convincingly beautiful – essentially,
what hip hop is supposed to be. Mansbach channels the genre, inter-cutting
or commenting on other texts in much the same way a DJ would create
a really complex, dialectical relationship between a particular rapper
and a particular beat by splicing them together. These inter-textual
riffs are the writer’s equivalent of sampling breakbeats from
old 45s.” – Kitchen Sink
"'Hard-hitting. Not since Spike Lee's Bamboozled has America seen
as trenchant and unapologetic a satire as Angry Black White Boy."
– Alternet
"This dude knows shit, and if you don't... this read will send
you well on your way. It's over three hundred pages of comedy (dark),
insight (powerful) and depth (deep)."-- New City Chicago
"Adam Mansbach's novel is at once humorous and tragic as it delves
into the complex issues of racial politics. Angry Black White Boy should
certainly provide a unique and wlecome addition to anyone's bookshelves
and as such is certainly worth picking up; however, putting it down
may be somewhat more problematic."-- Grind Mode (UK)
“A collar-grabbing satire.” – New York Metro
"An amazing take on racial issues in the U.S.. Beautifully told,
the story grips you from the start… A race novel reworked for
the hip hop generation. It’s frank, to the point and honest, and
on top of that it’s one hell of a funny read, one you’ll
find yourself going back to over and over." -- UK Hip Hop
(UK)
"Seamlessly accurate, biting satire... By the time Macon arrives
at the cataclysmic riot that is the climax of the book, we know why
he's there, we can see what's coming -- and, as with the best horror
films, we stick around to watch as the catastrophy hits." -- San
Francisco Bay Guardian
“Satire of the highest caliber, serious issues grounded in circumstances
that at times are laugh-out-loud funny. With the same touch of humanism
employed by writers such as James Baldwin and Ralph Ellison, Mansbach
does for the issue of race in contemporary American what those two did
for it as the Civil Rights Movement came to the forefront of American
discourse.” – Redsnap Magazine
“Angry Black White Boy joins Chapelle’s Show in filling
the void [by] addressing race issues in a direct and satirical fashion.
Mansbach cleverly delivers… with dynamic language and vivid, funny
characters.” – The Beat
“An exercise in race consciousness that scours the clichés
of white people's awareness of racial privilege.” – San
Francisco Weekly
“Angry Black White Boy makes a powerful argument for the continuing
relevance of the novel in advancing… vital questions of contemporary
political significance. Mansbach’s poetic prose wraps itself around
a compelling and engaging story, replete with jarring humour, action,
and the kinds of complex human interactions that might only be illustratable
in the world of fiction. Mansbach has created what will be an enduring
and nuanced portrait of a certain type of whiteness, raising more questions
than answers, and quietly reaffirming the central role to be played
by fiction in sensitively, attentively and intelligently processing
the world in which we lived and live, before and after the political
debris of fallen towers.” -- Seven Oaks Magazine (Canada)
"An engrossing story... never falters in its boffo momentum. Its
hilarity is studied and each fantastic flight gets a counter-punch."
—Bookslut.com
“What’s most fascinating about this novel is its realism
in dealing with prejudices from both white and black people. As a black
person, I had to often remind myself that the author was white, because
of how well he communicated the opinions and concerns of some of the
black characters. Mansbach writes with a wonderful style; he is able
to infuse intelligence and slang onto every page. Definitely a good
read for anyone who is in the mood for something different, thought-provoking
and controversial.” – Okayplayer.com
“At turns hilarious and profoundly troubling, the novel serves
as a meditation on hip hop culture and its enormous influence on the
psyches of white suburban youth.” – Dose Magazine
(Canada)
“Mansbach shows great
ability. He mixes a sophisticated writing voice with true b-boyisms
[and] makes subtle but poignant observations about racism, hip hop arts
and the mass media. He shows how little people know about each other
and how little some care… and mixes the styles of Richard Wright
and Kurt Vonnegut to great success.” – Elemental Magazine
“A heady, significance-laden rumination on race relations in America.”
– Wired Magazine (UK)
“The best novel of the past five years.” – Marc Bamuthi
Joseph, National Poetry Slam Champion
"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
“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,
PEN Hurston/Wright Legacy Award-winning author of Erasure
“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 No More Prisons
“Angry Black White 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
ACADEMIC PRAISE FOR ANGRY
BLACK WHITE BOY
"Adam Mansbach's Angry Black White Boy is not only a literary
gem that displays an amazing breadth of literacy in several musical,
cultural and literary traditions, but it is also an insightful and complex
lens on the never-ending conundrum surrounding white youth's fascination
with black culture and black people. The issue as defined by Mailer's
"White Negro" is not quite new now, and yet many long standing
desires, tensions, conflicts and contradictions remain. Through Macon
Detorney and his friends, Mansbach explores these desires, conflicts
and contradictions with extraordinary passion, pain, self-critical awareness,
complexity and depth. I came away shaken and stimulated, unable to set
aside the range of racial issues raised and the uneasy, unresolved answers
offered. Offering rare insight into racial issues that often consume
our students, Angry Black White Boy is an exceptionally valuable
text for college classes on race, popular culture and contemporary literature."
-- Professor Trica Rose, American Studies Department, UC Santa Cruz
"Angry Black White Boy is an engaging literary text that
boldly explores the terrain of authenticity and identity. Mansbach navigates
these topics by zeroing in on the cultural import of hip hop, and more
specifically, the intersection of hip hop with race and identity. The
novel's provocative protagonist forces us to think hard and re-open
a dialogue about race in American culture today. Offering a new approach
to examining the dialectical relationship between self and society,
Mansbach's book is a useful tool for students and teachers in urban
education and sociology." -- Daphne Farganis, Director, Institute
for Urban Education, New School University
"Adam Mansbach's Angry Black White Boy is a revelation, a wise
and funny riff on hip hop and the racial divide that has always plagued
America. I found that his book could get a class talking, at the deepest
level, about hardest issues, with a common language of youth culture.
Mansbach's writing is masterful, his references are erudite but accessible,
and his vision is unflinching." -- Rick Ayers, Berkeley High School,
co-author, Great Books for High School Kids: A Teacher's Guide to
Books That Can Change Teens' Lives
"Whether the subject is critical race studies, whiteness, hip hop, literature,
or the race novel tradition, Angry Black White Boy makes an excellent
teaching tool. Savvy, provocative, and rich with allusions, Mansbach's
text provides plenty of material for discussion and debate. In the context
of our conversation about appropriation, identification, and racialization,
the students in my hip hop history class clearly appreciated the book's
engagement with such issues, an the range of responses it generated
speaks to the book's value in the classroom. Plus, it's laugh-out-loud
funny." -- Wayne Marshall, Ethnomusicologist, Harvard University
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