58 pages • 1 hour read
Black Buck
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Author’s NoteChapter Summaries & Analyses
Author’s Note Summary
Signed “Buck,” the Author’s Note presents the book that follows as an autobiographical account. The protagonist, “writing from [his] penthouse overlooking Central Park,” states that his goal “is to help other Black men and women on a mission to sell their visions all the way to the top” (x). He extolls the history of Black excellence in selling and aligns himself with forebears from Martin Luther King to Oprah. If readers are open and willing to change, he promises that they, too, can achieve what he has by following the sales advice he imparts.
Author’s Note Analysis
The Author’s Note establishes several formal features and themes that repeat throughout the book. First, it emphasizes the theme of selling as a set of learnable skills that will lead to increased opportunity: Learning to sell enables people to “fix the game” that would otherwise beat them (x), and to succeed. Second, it represents the legacies of renowned Black figures as stories of successful salesmanship: Notably, Askaripour likens Martin Luther King, Jr.’s speeches promoting racial equality to a used car salesman pitching a faulty product to a naïve customer. This analogy establishes one of the key themes, and fundamental tensions, that the novel explores: the gap between aspirations for the future and the conditions of the world as it currently is.
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