Percival Everett

Hailed by the New York Times as "both a treatise and a romp," a bold and brilliant novel of a man coming to terms with himself. Now in paperback, this provocative tale within a tale details the life of avant-garde novelist and college professor Thelonious "Monk" Ellison. Monk, frustrated with his dismal book sales, composes a fierce parody of exploitative ghetto literature entitled My Pafology, which is greeted by critics as the work of a great new voice and garners him the success that he covets. Monk's impending struggle with his moral principles emerges as a revolutionary and riotous indictment of race and publishing in America.

Erasure

Percival Everett's blistering satire about race and writing, available again in paperback Thelonious "Monk" Ellison's writing career has bottomed out: his latest manuscript has been rejected by seventeen publishers, which stings all the more because his previous novels have been "critically acclaimed." He seethes on the sidelines of the literary establishment as he watches the meteoric success of We's Lives in Da Ghetto, a first novel by a woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days." Meanwhile, Monk struggles with real family tragedies—his aged mother is fast succumbing to Alzheimer's, and he still grapples with the reverberations of his father's suicide seven years before. In his rage and despair, Monk dashes off a novel meant to be an indictment of Juanita Mae Jenkins's bestseller. He doesn't intend for My Pafology to be published, let alone taken seriously, but it is—under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh—and soon it becomes the Next Big Thing. How Monk deals with the personal and professional fallout galvanizes this audacious, hysterical, and quietly devastating novel.

A Novel

Emily McMeans

“My self-murder would not be an act of rage and despair, but of only despair and my artistic sensibility could not stand that.”

incredibly inventive & American fiction is also a stellar depiction

B.A. Bacigal

I know that I missed so much of the references which is why I felt like I could never ‘get’ into the head of Thelonius, but of course this is also intentional. I loved the work on the interpersonal struggles that populate around someone reckoning with one’s self. The hurt and pain and fear relating to his family. I think, upon reflection or discussion, my rating will go up as I contemplate the plight of our narrator.

Megan Parrott

This was a tough read (well, listen) for me. I really, really like the premise but struggled with the timeline jumps and cut to the book within the book. I enjoyed the audiobook’s narrator but may have benefited from the physical book.

Mat Connor

I read Erasure earlier this year before its adaptation American Fiction came out in theaters. The movie is excellent, with phenomenal acting, and won an Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.

The novel is much sharper in its satire about the literary industry and racial stereotypes. There is a + 50 page extract of My Pafology, the novel within the novel, that has more f bombs and uses of the N word than any book you’ll ever read. It’s outrageous but very funny. 

The family story is also more complicated and sadder in the book. At the end of the movie, you feel hopeful. At the end of the book, you feel the author’s anger.

Both are successful in their own way but it’s like comparing a machete to a Bic razor. The book is worth your time even if you’ve seen the movie.

Between Erasure and James, Percival Everett is becoming one of my season pass authors. I’ll read anything he’s got.

I love the way it ends. Really amazing execution. 

Jess Rez

Diane Calello

Ali Angco

van 

Stef Hite

Ditipriya Acharya

Joline Hordijk

Morgan Thomas

Caitlin Bohannon

Clare B

Payten Bovat

Donald

Liam Byrne 

Athena Eloy

Val Moon

With sales at an all time low, your family falling apart, and your agent telling you you're not black enough, what's an author to do but write a ghetto novel and call it F*CK? At once a savage satire on contemporary American culture and a profoundly moving story of family turmoil, Erasure marked the UK debut of a unique American voice and was rightly hailed as one of the most startling novels of recent times.

Erasure

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