"Erasure" by Percival Everett

I checked out Erasure after seeing the trailer for the upcoming movie American Fiction, based on the book. I was a little surprised to learn the book was more than twenty years old. The trailer, at least, seemed to situate the story in a post-2020 world of anxious white publishers attempting to "reckon" with their publishing bias and privilege--and, of course, failing miserably, being all the more biased and privileged for their patronizing attempts to recognize "real" Black voices. Though I'm eager to see the film, it came as a happy surprise to find that the film's source material has a far different focus. Everett's book doesn't care about white privilege much, though of course the book's protagonist, "Monk" Ellison, is furious that his books on philosophical classics are labeled as "African American Fiction" and that the only Black books that sell focus relentlessly on a caricature of dire struggle in the "ghetto." And a central feature of the novel is the parody Monk writes in this vein that, not-so-ironically, goes on to be a beloved, award-winning bestseller. But despite all these conflicts, Everett is focused primarily on family--Monk's complicated relationships with his siblings and parents; how his sense of self-identity was formed from those relationships.

Monk is both arrogant and insecure. He was his father's favorite, but his doctor siblings seem far more accomplished. He writes dense, complicated books that no one reads or understands. He has no relationships beyond his family, and even those are considerably cool. He finds pleasure in philosophy and wood-working, but beyond that, he seems adrift. He's forced into action when his sister is murdered and his mother's health takes a significant decline. In other books, such a catalyst might force change or growth, but Monk's path isn't that simple. He's furious at himself for "selling out," but he takes no righteous stand. He's overly-generous, too late, to peripheral people in his life, but he can't rescue the relationships he actually cares about. 

Erasure, like Monk, is a little dense and not always entirely clear. But that just means that Monk is a compelling and complicated character. Similarly, the social satire the film will undoubtedly explore is still there, but more ambiguous. After all, at some point, I started to wonder if Monk's parody was actually good.