Erasure

A Novel

By: Percival Everett

Narrated by: Sean Crisden

Length: 8 hrs and 16 mins

Publisher's summary

Percival Everett's blistering satire about race and publishing, now as the Oscar-nominated film, American Fiction, directed by Cord Jefferson and starring Jeffrey Wright and Tracee Ellis Ross.

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.

©2001 Percival Everett (P)2023 Tantor

A Rollercoaster That Never Descends

Though at times it was challenging to follow, I couldn’t put it down once I found the rhythm of the writer, This book touches on so many important, nuanced topics: racism, classism, elder care, identity, infidelity, homophobia… meticulously highlighting the insidious nature of erasure. I just needed more chapters to flesh it all out. Hopefully the movie gives me the closure I so desperately desire lol…

A crazy ride

The book was good but not great! My friends loved it so read and take a chance on the crazy!!

Where am I being taken?

Somewhat complex. Kept my attention. This book left me wondering what to think of it.

Brilliantly Meta!

Ironic, sardonic, and so smart. The bookwork on so many levels. And it speaks to the richness and complexity of life. It does take the banal and make it somehow riveting and enjoyable, despite touching on some of life’s great pains.

The dichotomy of story. A literary intellectual dumbing down for the money.

I did not like the ending. No question.
I liked the family and the story thereof. The paper he presented at the conference lost me.
I think it is sad that the only way to sell a story is to write to the general perception of the masses, true or not.

Most Unusual

He won with the genre he hated most. As an 81 year old white woman, even I know who Stagger Lee was. The author is so much smarter than on ordinary person. I only understood his conversations.

did the movie first, then the book

liked the humor, the irony, and the fact that the book helped me get a little more invested in the characters.

A Good Read

This is a story about a black man who somehow gets caught up in the current zeitgeist of what being “black” means in America.

I fine book, but I was a little disappointed

I suppose any book that came after James, by the same author, would’ve been a letdown as James was so incredibly good. But I was put off by the sections about Go(gh) and the sections that used hyper intellectual language. The first was painful and the second was boring.

Amazing Narrator, Awesome Story

Erasure has a wonderful film adaptation out in the world (the movie is called American Fiction for those who may not know), and this audiobook narrated by Sean Crisden also does it justice.

This is a story that is bound to hold relevance as long as US Mainstream Publishing exists, and authors who happen to be Black may always find themselves in a position that will be relatable to that of the Thelonious Monk Ellison.

A master class from a true literary master.