Black Buck

Black Buck by Mateo Askaripour is almost two stories in one novel. The first part, about Buck’s rise from Starbucks barista to startup sales darling, felt almost too familiar. The second part, though, was completely unexpected in so many ways.

Buck is living in Bed-Stuy and working contentedly at a Manhattan Starbucks when he upsells (sort of — it’s a great scene and a great look at Buck’s character) a startup founder and gets offered a job in sales.

Buck’s hazed and harassed, constantly, at this new job. His hazing isn’t covered with what? I was just joking, you’re so uptight, though, the way it is for most women working in tech startups. Instead, it’s presented as an essential part of the job. Buck isn’t even his name — it’s a nickname from “Starbucks,” just in case he forgets what his last job was.  I thought this whole section was terribly realistic. We love to say that the American dream is accessible to everyone who works hard, and we love a good rags-to-riches story, right? But there’s plenty of shame and hostile jokes when the startup tech bros find out your last job was waitressing.

Sumwum feels like any Silicon Alley startup, where the swag, the extremely visible office perqs, and the high-energy group activities almost entirely obscure what’s being made or sold. Their business model is based on selling wellness and happiness, and it’s clear that Sumwum’s profit comes from charging companies thousands for employee wellness, and paying out a couple dollars an hour to the life coach “assistants” found in developing countries. (For another satirical look at the wellness industry, check out Happy And You Know It.)

But when the company’s in trouble, Buck’s brought out to show young Black sales talent, in a way that felt too familiar as a woman at a tech startup.

The second part of Black Buck is an almost total departure. I spent the first part of this novel feeling like Buck’s startup experiences were so familiar and recognizable, and the second part having no idea where anything was going and what would happen next. The whole thing is told in first-person, and I’d connected with Buck enough in the beginning that I was still on for the absolute wild ride that came next.

Buck’s making a killing with his high-risk, high-reward sales life.  He has loads of powerful connections, high-stakes work and fun in Manhattan, even if the Bed-Stuy part of his life isn’t going well.  He’s almost a different person here. Buck’s complete reversal from never drinking alcohol (or even coffee!) to casually doing a line in the car was a bit hard to accept, and that’s just one of the changes in his life. Still, he’s enough of himself to help his old Starbucks coworker learn sales, even though he’s kind of a dick about it, the way the Sumwum management was to him.

Helping to teach someone else leads to wider questions of what Buck owes his community, and what even is the difference between selling promises at a startup and selling on the street. There are elements of satire and exaggeration, teaching everyone sales sounds a lot like the endless learn-to-code initiatives in the tech world, but by this point, I was so invested in Buck’s story that I just had to see what came next.  From here, the story blends systems of racism and privilege in tech into a completely wild ride (a secret code for hiring! I mean, one that isn’t going to an Ivy or having family connections), with the return of themes from the first section, into a strange and believable ending.