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Tuff

Published
May 2000
Main Genre
General Fiction General Fiction
Rating
Pages
272

About This Book

From Paul Beatty, the author of the Man Booker Prize winner The Sellout, comes Tuff, a novel as fast-paced and hard-edged as the Harlem streets it portrays.

Age nineteen and weighing in at 320 pounds, Winston "Tuffy" Foshay is an East Harlem denizen who breaks jaws and shoots dogs and dreams of earning millions from his idea for Cap'n Crunch: The Movie, starring Danny DeVito. His best friend is a disabled Muslim who wants to rob banks, his guiding light is an ex-hippie Asian woman who worked for Malcolm X, and he married his wife, Yolanda, over the phone from jail.

He's funny and fierce, frustrated and feared. And when Tuff decides to run for City Council, this dazzling novel goes from astoundingly funny to acerbically sublime. By turns profound and irreverent, and populated with a hilarious supporting cast, Paul Beatty's Tuff is satire at its razor-sharp best.

"An extravagant, satirical cri de couer...Beatty's blunt, impious, streetwise eloquence has a kind of transfixing power." —The New York Times Book Review

"Masterfully conceived and highly entertaining...Richly textured and unforgettable."—The Boston Globe

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Paperback

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Trade Paperback
Aug 2001 Anchor ISBN 0385721110
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Paperback
Jul 1998 Vintage ISBN 0375701249
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May 2017 Oneworld Publications ISBN 1786072238
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Jul 2021 Picador ISBN 1250788331
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Hardcover

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First Edition May 2000 Knopf ISBN 0375401229
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eBook

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Nov 2012 Oneworld Publications ISBN 1786072246
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Nov 2012 Knopf ISBN 0307828999
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Nov 2012 Anchor ISBN B009QJMU0Y
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Jul 2021 Farrar, Straus and Giroux ISBN 0374722900
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Audio

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Audible
Sep 2016 Audible Studios ISBN B01LOEO8Z8
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MP3 CD
Dec 2016 Brilliance Audio ISBN 1536627356
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Nov 2018 Brilliance Audio ISBN 1978604998
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