The White Boy Shuffle

An African-American Ziggy Stardust. That clever and that hilarious too. So much fun to read!

This was a great book. It took me a few days to really get into it because the voice is different than most novels, but once I got into it's rhythym, I loved it. It was like spoken word on the page. Or a Jazz tune played by Thelonious Monk in his heyday. This book flowed and the main character reverberated in my head.

WBS is the story of a black boy who grew up in California and ends up being the voice of his people (I'm not giving anything away here. He says that on the first page of the book). We follow him from third grade through his early 20s from the beaches of LA to inner-city ghettos and finally, college. It's a dark fairy tale that requires a healthy suspension of disbelief, and one I was willing to give. Read this.