The internet makes it all too easy to go hunting for the information that will make sense of a book or an author, and I am resolved not to do that. At least, not till I have finished this review. From that position of self-imposed ignorance, The Sellout is a brilliantly funny and cutting satire on race in America. Nothing is safe, no-one immune, no taboo out of bounds. Sex, music, drugs, intellectualism, passivity, crime. ...

I enjoy Dave Eggers' writing a lot, and this was no exception. He has a deft way of filling in the back story that I admire, and his treatment of the two young children seems to me absolutely accurate, poignant and touching and funny. The adventures that these heroes get into are many and varied and...