Erasure: A Novel - Softcover

Everett, Percival L.

4.19

12,562 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0786888156 ISBN 13: 9780786888153

Publisher: Hyperion Books, 2002

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Frustrated with his poor book sales, college professor Thelonious "Monk" Ellison pens a fierce parody of exploitive ghetto literature entitled My Pafology, which is hailed by critics as the work of a great new voice and brings him the success he craves, but also confronts him with a difficult choice between his moral principles and his dreams. Reprint. 40,000 first printing.

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Review:

Erasure is a tableaux of many delicate interconnected parts. Ostensibly though, it's a book about books, a novel about writing. An overpopulated genre perhaps, but Percival Everett's jack-in-a-box of a novel offers something fresh and quite unique. His narrator and protagonist Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, a professor of English literature, is "a writer of fiction" whose obtuse books are regularly criticised for saying nothing about the "African American experience". He is so incensed by the runaway success of We's Lives In Da Ghetto--a novel that purports to represent contemporary black life but which Ellison describes as akin to finding "a display of watermelon-eating, banjo-playing darkie carvings" in an antiques mall--that he knocks off an expletive-riddled hood yarn of his own. Circulated to publishers under the pseudonym Stagg R Leigh, his pastiche, initially titled My Pafology later shortened to just Fuck, instantly draws a six-figure advance and Hollywood interest. The critics are equally fulsome in their praise: "Dazzling, raw and simply honest" emotes a New York Times reviewer. Monk, who has to meet agents and interviewers disguised as the monosyllabic Stagg, even finds his literary Frankenstein's monster nominated for a prize that he is judging.

Like Nabokov's Pale Fire, the novel Fuck appears in full; a slight hurdle (as with Shade's poem in Pale Fire, if we are honest) is having to endure over 70 pages of faux gangsta prose and being asked to believe that this "novel" would garner such acclaim. The story of Fuck is, however, intricately woven into events besetting Monk's family life; meaty subplots are provided by a quest for a half-sister and, in particular, the story of his mother's descent into senility. As Monk adopts a new identity as Stagg, his mother is increasingly unable to recognise her own son. With its rapier satire and flamboyant invention, Everett's savage, moving and amusing book recalls Philip Roth at his metafictional finest. -- Travis Elborough

Review:

"Erasure is as watertight and hilarious a satire as, say, [Evelyn Waugh's] "Scoop" . . . [Everett] is a first-rate word wrangler." "--"Nicholas Lezard", ""The Guardian
"
"With equal measures of sympathy and satire, ["Erasure"] craftily addresses the highly charged issue of being 'black enough' in America." "--"Jenifer Berman, "The New York Times Book Review"

PRAISE FOR "ERASURE: "

"Erasure is as watertight and hilarious a satire as, say, [Evelyn Waugh's] "Scoop" . . . [Everett] is a first-rate word wrangler." "--"Nicholas Lezard," ""The Guardian
"
"With equal measures of sympathy and satire, ["Erasure"] craftily addresses the highly charged issue of being 'black enough' in America." "--"Jenifer Berman, "The New York Times Book Review""An over-the-top masterpiece. . . . Percival's talent is multifaceted, sparked by a satiric brilliance that could place him alongside Wright and Ellison as he skewers the conventions of racial and political correctness." "--Publishers Weekly""""" "A scathingly funny look at racism and the book business: editors, publishers, readers, and writers alike." "--Booklist " "More genuine and tender than much of Everett's previous work, but no less impressive intellectually: a high point in an already substantial literary career." "--Kirkus Reviews" "The sharp satire on American publishers and American read

Praise for "Erasure: "

Erasure is as watertight and hilarious a satire as, say, [Evelyn Waugh's] "Scoop" . . . [Everett] is a first-rate word wrangler. "Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian"

With equal measures of sympathy and satire, ["Erasure"] craftily addresses the highly charged issue of being black enough' in America. "Jenifer Berman, The New York Times Book Review"

An over-the-top masterpiece. . . . Percival's talent is multifaceted, sparked by a satiric brilliance that could place him alongside Wright and Ellison as he skewers the conventions of racial and political correctness. "Publishers Weekly"

A scathingly funny look at racism and the book business: editors, publishers, readers, and writers alike. "Booklist"

More genuine and tender than much of Everett's previous work, but no less impressive intellectually: a high point in an already substantial literary career. "Kirkus Reviews"

The sharp satire on American publishers and American readers that Everett puts forward is delicious, though it won't win him many friends among the sentimental educated class who want to read something serious about black inner-city life without disturbing any of their stereotypes. "Chicago Tribune""

"Erasure is as watertight and hilarious a satire as, say, [Evelyn Waugh's] Scoop . . . [Everett] is a first-rate word wrangler." --Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian

"With equal measures of sympathy and satire, [Erasure] craftily addresses the highly charged issue of being 'black enough' in America." --Jenifer Berman, The New York Times Book Review

"An over-the-top masterpiece. . . . Percival's talent is multifaceted, sparked by a satiric brilliance that could place him alongside Wright and Ellison as he skewers the conventions of racial and political correctness." --Publishers Weekly

"A scathingly funny look at racism and the book business: editors, publishers, readers, and writers alike." --Booklist

"More genuine and tender than much of Everett's previous work, but no less impressive intellectually: a high point in an already substantial literary career." --Kirkus Reviews

"The sharp satire on American publishers and American readers that Everett puts forward is delicious, though it won't win him many friends among the sentimental educated class who want to read something serious about black inner-city life without disturbing any of their stereotypes." --Chicago Tribune

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