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Tuff: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Paul Beatty
Publisher: Anchor
Category: Book
List Price: $13.00
Buy New: $4.48
You Save: $8.52 (66%)
New (19) Used (17) from $2.00
Rating:  25 reviews
Sales Rank: 104089
Media: Paperback
Pages: 272
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 8.1 x 5.2 x 0.6
ISBN: 0385721110
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780385721110
ASIN: 0385721110
Publication Date: August 21, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Amazon.com Review
Paul Beatty's eponymous protagonist, Tuffy, wouldn't seem the type to sidle up too close to the word adorable. At 300 pounds, this thug is a true heavyweight in his East Harlem neighborhood. He robs, he kills, he gets high. But by the end of Beatty's follow-up to The White Boy Shuffle, he is as complexly drawn, as funny, and as lovable as any character in recent memory. The author torques his man into an uncomfortable position: this mighty rose in Spanish Harlem decides to run for City Council. Tuffy--a.k.a. Winston Foshay--is having a tough time of it. Sick of selling drugs and "regulating" neighborhood scams, he wants a better way to support his wife and baby son. His first solution is to get himself a Big Brother (even though he's 22 years old). With the help of his new Brother--who turns out to be the rabbi Spencer Throckmorton, a Jewish black man who receives no end of torment from the Muslim contingent of Tuffy's crew--Tuffy runs. Beatty nails the social nuances of East Harlem right down to the ground. When Tuffy acquires a gun, he considers telling his best friend Fariq about it, but "decided against it. Once people knew you had a gun, it was like having a car--everyone begging to borrow it, wanting you to use it to make their lives easier." Beatty locates irony constantly and quietly: Tuffy and his wife, Yolanda, go to the local school to vote, and the "flag over the entrance was flying at half-mast because the pulleys had rusted shut." Beatty also has a great eye for the way people move; this is a writer who has been paying attention. Spencer takes a late-night walk with Tuffy, through East Harlem. A group of teens approaches, frightening Spencer. The boisterous youths were only two steps away from him--so close he could feel the chill emanating off their ice-cold scowls. Winston walked toward the group, reached out, and, without breaking stride, shook the hand of the lead gargoyle. And throughout, Beatty writes--records, it sometimes seems, so dead-on is his tone--incredibly funny dialogue. As is only right, he saves all the best lines for Tuffy. In order to better understand Spencer's Jewishness, Tuffy, a film buff, rents Schindler's List. He complains to Spencer: "I mean, the movie was terrible. I couldn't get past that there were no Jews as tall as Schindler. In all of Germany the tallest Jew went up to Schindler's belly button?" And this is the final, trumping pleasure of Beatty's book: it always returns to Tuffy. With its broad portrait of a fish out of water and its wicked, satirical tone, the novel sometimes threatens to careen into Tom Wolfe territory. Beatty wisely reins in and concentrates on his hero. The author seems a little in love with Tuffy, and by the end, we are too. --Claire Dederer
Product Description
As fast-paced and hard-edged as the Harlem streets it portrays, Tuff shows off all of the amazing skill that Paul Beatty showed off in his first novel, The White Boy Shuffle.
Weighing in at 320 pounds, Winston “Tuffy” Foshay, is an East Harlem denizen who breaks jaws and shoots dogs and dreams of millions from his idea 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 his wife, Yolanda, he married from jail over the phone. Shrewdly comical as this dazzling novel is, it turns acerbically sublime when the frustrated Tuffy agrees to run for City Council. Smartly irreverent and edgily fierce, Tuff is a bona fide original.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 20 more reviews...
 A Great Character in Somewhat Disjointed Settings December 3, 2007
Daniel Gilbert (Stanford, CA United States)
Winston Foshay - Tuffy - is one of the most memorable characters I have encountered in fiction in the last few years. His language, his relationships, his reasoning, and his taste in film worked for me separately and together. The surrounding characters in Tuff fall into the 'interesting, but not quite deep enough' camp for me, certainly enough description for their supporting roles, but none of them strong enough to be the Tuffy's foil or an authentic sounding board for his reflections. The settings seemed a bit confusing. While entertaining a sumo exhibition lends very little to the plot and only a little to Winston. Overall though, an enjoyable book that I would recommend.
 Get over it June 10, 2005
docsplice (DC)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is a really complex book I wouldn't recommend to someone who isn't used to dealing with issues related to race, as clearly some of the reviewers here are more focused on whether or not they were offended than what Paul Beatty is trying to say about life, literature and identity. Those reviewers who are stuck on the race issue would be wise to note that when asked to address the differences between black people and white people, Rabbi Spencer Throckmorton can only come up with two trivial differences: white people eat ice cream in the winter, and black people wait till you get inside your house before they drive off. The point of this statement is not to make two absolute declarations, but highlight what really makes us different most of the time: culture and class. If you don't understand this book or think its racist, you're just not paying attention.
tuff enough April 26, 2005
njreader (Trenton, NJ)
Paul Beatty's second novel (I refuse to refer to it as a "hip-hop novel") is an often hilarious study of genuine thought processes and attitudes that exist in big-city urban life. Beatty's ability to combine comedy and social commentary is uncanny, all while ostensibly not taking himself too seriously. It is difficult for the average reader to empathize with Winston "Tuffy" Foshay, a combination of Big E. Smalls and Tony Soprano who has spent the entirety of his 22 years in East Harlem. Tuffy is that rare breed of person who regularly commits acts of neighborhood thuggery but still manages to be loved and respected for his magnanimity and ability to fit in with just about anyone; anyone, that is, who's Caucasian or middle-to-upper class. And even though Tuffy doesn't think twice about dislocating someone's jaw or rendering someone unconscious by other means, he has only recently begun carrying a gun, which makes him comparatively genteel in this neighborhood.
Tuffy may be difficult to like, but it's not difficult for most to identify with his plight; at 22, he's trying to find himself, in his own iconoclastic way. On a lark, he decides to run for City Council. He doesn't have much interest in politics and has little ambition to serve in office. But, with the help of his loyal wife (whom he married via a telephone ceremony while he was incarcerated), a Japanese mother figure, and a black rabbi/journalist, he is determined to at least temporarily have a seldom-heard voice heard, one that is neither Democrat or Republican, liberal nor conservative, just plain East Harlem.
Beatty achieves a grittiness in "Tuff" that his first novel, "White Boy Shuffle," lacked for the most part. Though "Tuff" also suffers from over-the-top violence (which I think is intended to be funny) and an overabundance of street slang (it seems Beatty is trying to hard at times) the lives of Tuffy and his friends and neighbors are more clearly distinguished since Beatty decides to forego the magical realism found in "White Boy," which, although stylistically impressive, subtracted from some of the book's earnestness. But like "White Boy Shuffle," "Tuff" is, more than anything, a truly unique piece of literature. It contains many contrary characteristics: It's a fun piece of social commentary, a thoughtful look at violence and poverty, and a real look at how the urban poor feel and why they aren't apologetic for it, and why their world has different rules than yours may. Beatty not only somehow accomplishes this, he does it in a way that it loyal to both street life and literary life, showing that when the two worlds meet, something fantastic and wonderful can be created.
 Tuff is Tough May 27, 2004
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
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.
Another great read from Paul Beatty June 9, 2003
White Boy Shuffle is one of my favorite books, and I have given it as a gift to many people, all of whom have loved it. That said, I couldn't help being just a little disappointed by Tuff. In Tuff, as in White Boy Shuffle, Paul Beatty builds excellent characters, and his descriptions of life in Spanish Harlem are incredible. This is a great story, entertaining to read, and I would definitely recommend this to others.
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