Erasure

I had watched the movie and really enjoyed it, and was interested in reading the novel it was based off of. While the movie left the viewer the ability to hope for something better, the book has no problems leaving the reader in despair.

Funny enough, I enjoy stories that are wiling to go the distance for the sake of the narrative themes, so I enjoyed this book. It had such a wide range in narrative structure. The main character, Monk, is a literary analyst and as a result tries to write novels that avoids the pitfalls that he thinks could diminish its artistic integrity. The author really hammers his point of view by even including nearly a whole article's worth of text written in that overly analytical style criticizing another character's novel, complete with footnotes. I certainly could not keep up with the jargon, and that was exactly the point.

The main theme of the novel focuses on the idea of how POC are treated in the publishing world, back in its liberal leaning days. Publishing companies with majority white staff and audiences both diminish a work by always categorizing it by the race of the author regardless of its themes, while also elevating works that fit its expectations.

The overall message at the end is all too real, leaving only a sense of nihilism. Just be prepared for the despair, and have your positive nihilism book on standby to help you get through the aftermath.

I saw the film "American Fiction" recently, loved it, and prefer it to this book that it is based on. The basic premise is the same for both: an academic Black man nicknamed Monk who is a writer has written a number of books critically well received, but that have earned him neither popularity or much money. So he writes a book in a matter of days in Black street dialect under the pen name of Stag R. Leigh, and of course it becomes an instant best seller. His book's title is, yes, Fuck, and is nominated for a literary award. Monk had already been chosen as a judge for the award and now is faced with reviewing the book he had written as a joke.

As he struggles with the book issue he is also processing the death of his sister, his mother's advancing Alzheimers, and his brother's disconnection from the family. He is briefly involved with someone romantically, responsible for the care of his mom, and somehow also manages to spend time fly fishing and doing fine carpentry work. And that's my complaint about the book. There is so much going on, not to mention the inclusion of the entire text of Fuck, that much of the time the book feels untethered.

The novel explores how White people don't really get Blacks, and absolutely don't know what to do with upper middle class Blacks. Some of the Blacks in the book can't deal with upper middle class Blacks either. This is biting and hilarious satire, and even if it is not as tightly constructed as some of Everett's other novels, I enjoyed it. I think the movie is better at getting to essentials but both are worth attention.