Tuff - TIME

Winston ("Tuffy") Foshay is a good hustler. If he were working on Wall Street, he would be called a Mover. So the fact that this 19-year-old drug dealer decides to launch a campaign to become a New York City councilman doesn't seem a stretch. Especially since his mentors are themselves unconventional--Spencer Throckmorton, a black rabbi, and Inez Nomura, a Japanese-American activist. Beatty's second novel (The White Boy Shuffle was his first) is like an extended rap song, its characters recounting struggle and survival with the bravado of hip-hoppers. But then, that's exactly the attitude you need to be a Mover.