The Sellout

Content Warning: The Sellout contains offensive language around race, gender, sexuality, and trauma. The study guide reproduces this language in direct quotes and obscures Paul Beatty’s frequent use of the n-word. The book also contains gun violence, including the killing of a Black man by police.

The narrator of the story, a Black man known only as Me, receives a letter from the People of the United States of America: He has to go in front of the Supreme Court in Washington, DC. Me has never committed a crime, yet he has to stand trial in the highest court in the United States. For the trial, Me buys a suit for $129. The salesman promises Me he’ll like the way he looks, and he’ll feel good, but Me dislikes how he looks and he feels bad.

Before the trial, Me checks out the Washington, DC, sights: The Lincoln Memorial, the Pentagon, and the zoo, where there’s a gorilla named Baraka. In the Supreme Court building, Me smokes marijuana with the help of an affable female police officer. The authorities won’t bother to go after him for doing drugs on federal property—the Supreme Court’s focus is on the terrible, race-related crimes he’s allegedly already committed.