BLACK BUCK

For fans of Sorry to Bother You and Wolf of Wall Street: A debut novel that explores ambition and race in America's corporate world, following a young man who is yanked from his comfortable life and put on the sales team at an eccentric, mysterious start-up - where he is the only black employee - and finds that his new job is a lot more than he bargained for.

An unambitious twenty-two-year-old, Darren lives in a Bed-Stuy brownstone with his mother, who wants nothing more than to see him live up to his potential as the valedictorian of Bronx Science. But Darren is perfectly happy working at Starbucks, hanging out with his girlfriend, Soraya, and eating his mother's home-cooked meals. All that changes when a chance encounter with Rhett Daniels, the silver-tongued CEO of Sumwun, NYC's hottest tech startup, results in an exclusive invitation for Darren to join an elite sales team.

After enduring a “hell week” of training along with two other new recruits, Darren, the only black person in the company, transforms into “Buck,” a ruthless, self-serving salesman unrecognizable to his friends and family. Eventually realizing the disheartening difference between being a token and a pioneer, Buck hatches a plan to help other PoC infiltrate America's sales forces, setting off an extraordinary chain of events that forever changes the way PoC perceive themselves in white-dominated workplaces.

Using the narrative device of a motivational memoir, Askaripour allows Buck to pepper his rollicking tale with sales tips so that BLACK BUCK ultimately becomes a sales manual wrapped inside a novel. But Askaripour's intent isn't simply literary playfulness; he hopes this novel might actually be read on both levels: as entertainment and an inspiring resource.

As a first-generation American born to a Jamaican mother and Iranian father, Mateo Askaripour's work aims to help people of color, especially those in traditionally white environments, know they, too, deserve to thrive in those spaces. He was a 2018 Rhode Island Writers Colony writer-in-residence under the artistic directorship of Jason Reynolds, and his writing has appeared in Lit Hub, The Rumpus, Catapult, Entrepreneur, Medium, and elsewhere. He lives in Brooklyn and travels across America training employees at startups in the art of sales. You can follow him on Twitter at @AskMateo, and be sure to check out his piece, “MoveOver Willy Loman—Literature Needs a New Salesman” about the making of BLACK BUCK, which recently appeared in Electric Literature.