Erasure by Percival Everett

Erasure by Percival Everett

Read by Sean Crisden

8 hours, 16 minutes

Published January 2001 by University Press

Publisher's Summary:

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.

My Thoughts: 

In December 2023, almost a year before I became aware of Percival Everett, this book was made into the film American History, starring Jeffrey Wright. It's one of those movies that I had every intention of watching (and still do), but had no idea until I began looking for more books by Everett (after loving his James last year) that Everett was the author behind that movie. Movie I want to see? Author I'm newly admiring? Heck, yes. 

This was a rare experience for me. While I thought Crisden did a terrific job reading the book, I also felt like I would have enjoyed this one had I picked up a physical copy of the book. I think. Because there is a part of this book where we read the book that Monk ends up writing and it's probably much better experienced by listening to it. Still, I think I would have paid better attention, felt more attached to the characters. And as much as Monk annoyed me, with his snobbish attitudes about literature, I did want to care about him. 

Despite his literary skill, it's not been a lucrative career; and with two siblings, a father, and a grandfather who are/were doctors, he's something of the black sheep of the family. Sister Lisa is a doctor at an abortion center and takes care of their aging mother until tragedy strikes. Monk's brother is an addict with a failing marriage (and an awakening to the fact that he's gay) and a busy career so he can't be counted on. Clearly Monk has to step up. 

Fortunately, that book he didn't mean to write has actually given him the fiscal comfort to be able to do that. The problem is that Monk hates the book, doesn't want to have anything more to do with it. But the public is eating it up and the critics love it. Stagg R. Leigh is in big demand and Monk has to decide how whether or not it's time to fess up and risk losing continuing income from the book, or to take on Leigh's persona and dig in. 

It's an excellent satire that I imagine has an even bigger impact on those who live that life, who understands the line that Monk is walking as he writes about something he actually knows nothing about. Is Monk empathetic to the plight of his characters or has he written an exploitative work? This one certainly gave me a lot to think about. I just wish I had read it, rather than listening to it. I think. 

James by Percival Everett

James by Percival Everett

320 pages

Published March 2024 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Publisher's Summary: When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father, recently returned to town. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and too-often-unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.

While many narrative set pieces of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain in place (floods and storms, stumbling across both unexpected death and unexpected treasure in the myriad stopping points along the river’s banks, encountering the scam artists posing as the Duke and Dauphin…), Jim’s agency, intelligence and compassion are shown in a radically new light.

My Thoughts: 

In 1968 my family moved into the house my parents would live in for 54 years. In that house there was a bit of wall between the room my sister and I shared and our parents' room. After my siblings and I were bathed for the night and in our jammies, my dad would lean against that wall, with the three of us leaning into him, and read to us. We read the usual kid fare (Dr. Seuss' Yertle the Turtle was a particular favorite) and books my dad had grown up reading. But the real treat was when my dad pulled one of the red leather-bound classics off of the shelves and read a chapter of that to us each night. One of those books was Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I loved that book, in no small part, I'm sure, as much to the setting and my dad's wonderful reading as for the book itself. But that book pulled me into another world, where children were the center of the world and had marvelous adventures. It never occurred to me then, a girl growing up in the late 60's/early 70's and in a smallish city with very few persons of color, to question Twain's use of the "n" word or his depiction of Jim. 

For Percival Everett, Huckleberry Finn was a very different book. Fortunately for us, he decided there was another story to be told about Twain's characters, a story where the enslaved Jim is an intelligent, well-read family man who protects himself by code switching and playing ignorant. 

Having read Huckleberry Finn more than once, I couldn't help but track that book against the action in this one and I was pleased to see Everett follow that original story line; it allowed me to get an entirely different take on both novels (although reading Twain's work is not essential to enjoying this book). Here Huck is what he is, an largely uneducated, naive young man who relies almost entirely on Jim's ability to survive, even as Jim is forced to allow Huck to believe he is the one doing the thinking. With Jim as the central character in the events, though, slavery plays a much greater role - from Jim's usage of it to try to make the pair some money to the risk Jim is constantly in along the way to the way readers get a real impression of how enslaved people were used and abused to the abuse that James must watch others suffer in order for him to survive. 

“White people try to tell us that everything will be just fine when we go to heaven. My question is, Will they be there? If so, I might make other arrangements.”

Everett doesn't stick entirely to Twain's outline, though. Through all of the book, Everett finds room for humor, generally at the expense (justifiably) of the white characters. He also has some real surprises in store for readers and an ending that I couldn't help cheering for, even as I feared what would happen beyond the final pages of the book. This one is going on the best-of list for 2024 when it will likely end the year at the top of the list. It's a book I would reread, a book I want to discuss with other readers. 

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan
Published June 2013 by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Source: checked out from my local library

Publisher’s Summary:
When New Yorker Rachel Chu agrees to spend the summer in Singapore with her boyfriend, Nicholas Young, she envisions a humble family home and quality time with the man she hopes to marry. But Nick has failed to give his girlfriend a few key details. One, that his childhood home looks like a palace; two, that he grew up riding in more private planes than cars; and three, that he just happens to be the country’s most eligible bachelor.


On Nick’s arm, Rachel may as well have a target on her back the second she steps off the plane, and soon, her relaxed vacation turns into an obstacle course of old money, new money, nosy relatives, and scheming social climbers.

My Thoughts:
I finally decided it was time to read this book after catching the movie adaptation on t.v., which I thought was a lot of fun, if somewhat hard to keep track of who was who. I felt the same way about the book…for the most part.

Kirkus Reviews suggests this book is “Edith Wharton goes to Singapore” – which is funny because that’s exactly what I was thinking as I was reading the details of every dish served at every meal. That's actually one of my favorite things about Wharton’s The Age of Innocence; I could vividly picture the dining tables laden with silver platters of rich foods, could imagine the tastes of those foods, get a picture of the kinds of people who would sit around a table that overloaded with food. The problem here is that I have no idea what most of the dishes Kwan’s describing are – I can’t picture them on the table, can’t conjure up the flavors. So I skimmed the paragraphs where he described the meals. Yep, I get it – long paragraph about food equals lots of food on the table. Moving on. Ditto his descriptions of designer clothes, high-end automobiles, exorbitant jewelry, and private planes. I’m sure there are readers who will recognize all of the names; but I didn’t for the most part, so the only way I knew that the characters thought nothing of buying the most expensive clothing was because Kwan attached a name to it.

All that being said, I absolutely enjoyed learning about a part of the world which is so unknown to me. Kwan did a terrific job of making me feel the claustrophobia of these Asian cities that have had such tremendous growth along with tremendous wealth, of bringing his settings to life, and of explaining the complexities of the relationships between the various cultures. And, yes, of giving me a vivid image of what a room full of people dressed to impress looked like. I could also easily imagine how overwhelmed Rachel would have been amongst all of those people. Rich or not, I could easily picture a room full of those "aunties" bearing down on me and the struggle it would be to be "on" all of the time. Add to all of that terrific satire and some wonderful one-liners and you’ve got yourself a book I raced through. I really appreciated all of the footnotes as another tool for learning and because it meant that Kwan didn’t “Americanize” his characters speech and make it feel less authentic.

Will I read the next book in the trilogy? The verdict’s still out on that one. I have it on hold at the library but I feel like there are too many books I’d rather get to instead. I enjoyed that characters in this book; I’m just not sure I enjoyed them enough to read more about them.

The Clothes They Stood Up In by Alan Bennett

The Clothes They Stood Up In by Alan Bennett
Originally published July 1998
Source: bought it for my Nook

Publisher's Summary:
The Ransomes had been burgled. "Robbed," Mrs. Ransome said. "Burgled," Mr. Ransome corrected. Premises were burgled; persons were robbed. Mr. Ransome was a solicitor by profession and thought words mattered. Though "burgled" was the wrong word too. Burglars select; they pick; they remove one item and ignore others. There is a limit to what burglars can take: they seldom take easy chairs, for example, and even more seldom settees. These burglars did. They took everything.

When the sedate Ransomes return from the opera to find their Notting Hill flat stripped absolutely bare—down to the toilet paper off the roll, they face a dilemma: Who are they without the things they've spent a lifetime accumulating? Suddenly the world is full of unlimited and frightening possibility.

My Thoughts:
All it took for me to decide to buy this one was that name - Alan Bennett. The guy who's written screenplays I've loved, including The Madness of King George. The guy who wrote one of my favorite reads of 2009, The Uncommon Reader (my review here). I picked it to read now because at under 200 pages, I assumed it could keep my interest for that long, even if I'm suffering from the reading doldrums. And, again, Alan Bennett.

Bennett did not disappoint. The Ransomes are so set in their ways, so staid, that Mr. Ransome's first name sounds odd to Mrs. Ransome's ears. "Set in their ways" may not be the right phrase. It's more a case of set in Mr. Ransome's ways. Not until everything they had every had, right down to the casserole baking in the oven, was stolen, does Mrs. Ransome realize that "their" ways might not be her ways. In fact, she feels a certain unexpected lightness and a joy in exploring new places and meeting new people as she sets out to pick up the things they need to get by until the insurance settles up. The television they've never had until now opens her eyes to new ways to think and speak. Mr. Ransome carries on, determined to benefit from the event only financially.

When The New York Times reviewed this book, the reviewer felt it would not do as well in the U.S. as it had done in Britain because Americans would not be able to connect to Mr. Ransome's "emotional constipation" and Mrs. Ransome's "pathological diffidence." Well, perhaps those are more British traits than American but that's not to say that we don't all know people like the Ransomes. Besides, I think we can all relate to the very mixed feelings the Ransomes have about their "stuff" and, British or not, appreciate Bennett's terrific wit.

If nothing else, The Clothes They Stood Up In will make readers think about their attachment to their "things" and the weight those same things can put on us.

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett

The Uncommon Reader by Alan Bennett
120 pages
Published September 2007 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux

When The Queen goes in search of one of her Corgis, she inadvertently comes across a mobile library on the palace grounds. Feeling that she must check out a book now that she's there, she takes the advice of Norman, one of the kitchen workers.

"She had never taken much interest in reading. She read, of course, as one did, but liking books was something she left to other people. It was a hobby and it was in the nature of her job that she didn't have hobbies. "

The first book doesn't necessarily grab her but now she must take it back, and once she's back, she again feels compelled to check out another book. Bennett takes us along as the Queen becomes an avid reader, much to the chagrin of her entire staff and even the Prime Minister when it begins to effect her work.

"Still, though reading absorbed her, what the Queen had not expected was the degree to which it drained her of enthusiasm for anything else. "

The Queen has to sneak books in, her chief of staff keeps assisting in making them disappear, and the Prime Minister sends an aide to see to it that the Queen cease and desist immediately.

This book is charming and witty and it's easy to see why Bennett is so popular in England. He is able to skewer the whole of the system of royalty and while still making the Queen look good. He even has a go at writers, as well. When the Queen hosts a party for writers, she finds them to be quite boring. And he's able to throw in a surprise ending, just in case you weren't enjoying the book enough all ready! At 120 pages, this is novella is the first thing I have read in a very long time that ended much too soon for me.

Friday Favorite

About now you're probably starting to wonder if I read any books that aren't made into movies because, once again, my Friday Favorite has been made into a movie, Stella Gibbons' Cold Comfort Farm. Although I'll bet most of you haven't heard of the movie. The movie, released in 1996, stars Kate Beckinsale, Rufus Sewell, and Ian McKellan. I love this movie so I was excited to see that it was originally a book. Then I was nervous. What if I hated the book and it ruined the movie? Hurray! The book had every bit of the charm, wit and whimsy of the movie--or, more accurately, the movie had every bit of the book's charm, wit and whimsy since the book was originally published in 1932.

Flora Poste is a young society lady who suddenly finds herself an orphan. She most definitely does not want to get a job so decides she will need to live off her relatives. But which ones? After rejecting a number of offers, Flora chooses to move to Cold Comfort Farm, home of the Starkadders because she feels that they will provide her with a project. To say that the people on Cold Comfort Farm are a bunch of country bumpkins is an understatement. But Flora immediately sets to work to make their lives "better," although her motives are not altruistic.

The book is a wonderful satire of the melodramas of D. H. Lawrence and Thomas Hardy and a parody of the rural novels so popular at the time it was written. Okay--that sounds boring doesn't it? Pretend like you didn't just read the names Lawrence and Hardy because you don't have to have been depressed by them to enjoy this book. The characters in this book are wonderful--a recluse aunt, a hellfire preacher, and an oversexed cousin obsessed with the "talkies" (who also happens to be in charge of the farm's bull). Even the names will make you laugh: Ada Doom, Elfin, Urk and the cows are Feckless, Pointless, Aimless and Graceless while the bull is Big Business. This book is just great fun! It's a shame that Gibbon's other works are no longer in print.