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Erasure

4.14 of 5 stars 4.14 · rating details · 1,198 ratings · 167 reviews

"Thelonious (Monk) Ellison has never allowed race to define his identity. But as both a writer and an African American, he is offended and angered by the success of We's Lives in Da Ghetto, the exploitative debut novel of a young, middle-class black woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days." Hailed as an authentic representation of the African...more

Paperback; Reprint edition, 280 pages

Published October 2nd 2002 by Hyperion (first published 2001)

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May 16, 2013 Richard rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: 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 rea...more Rating: 2.5* of five

The Publisher Says: 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 Review: Why am I giving this only two and a half stars? Because, in my world, books that have satirical aims should have sharp focus and clear line-of-sight on their target. I'm not clear on the target here: Modern Murrikin kulcher in general? Political Correctness and its idiotic unintended side effect of glamorizing substandard stuff? The sad fate of a critically acclaimed but commercially ignored writer? “All of the above” seems to be the answer Everett gives, and this is the source of my discontent. With that many targets in his sights, plus the plight of children of aging parents, plus the sibling dynamic in a family of high achievers...too much. Nothing gets enough time or attention.

It's a damn shame, too, because Everett can write his tuchus off, and should have spent his seed a wee tiny bit more carefully. In the ten years since the novel was first published, it has (sadly) not become less timely. So there's that going for it. But really, with all the terrific books there already are to read, why spend money and eyeblinks on an almost-good one?

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.(less)

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Feb 27, 2008 Maren rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

I took an advanced fiction class from Percival Everett and admired him immensely as a teacher and person, so I finally got around to reading one of his books. I had taken a look at "Glyph" before, but "Erasure" really got me. It's the story of a brilliant Black man who defies popular (and forced) stereotypes about black men - not unlike Everett himself though I'm sure he would resent comparisons intensely.

The character - Monk - is so discouraged by the lack of audience his uber-intellectual boo...more

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Jul 19, 2007 Mary rated it 4 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. The protagonist of Erasure, a novelist named Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, is having trouble getting his most recent work published when he comes across the work of an "authentic" black novelist whose book "We's Lives in Da Ghetto" is a runaway bestseller. Horrified by the stereotypes and the dialect in it, he sets out (angrily) to write a book just as horrible and titles it "My Pafology" (later changing the name to something that the publisher suggests he spells 'Phuck' so as not to alienate more...more

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May 04, 2011 MJ Nicholls rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, merkins, tortured-artists

A strange blend of family drama and razor-sharp satire. Thelonious Ellison is an academic writer in the mould of Barthes or Derrida, whose unreadable novels upset and alienate colleagues and readers. Riled by the rise of cheap and racist "ghetto-lit," he pens a satire against the genre, which becomes unbearably popular.

Despite this mouthwatering premise, however, most of Erasure is about Ellison's relationship with his mother, a passionate woman succumbing to Alzhemier's. The story is a touching...more

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Mar 14, 2011 Steven Salaita rated it 5 of 5 stars

I love this novel. I laughed throughout, but it's not merely a satire and a meta-commentary about race and the corporate publishing industry. It's also a moving story about family dynamics and professional frustration. I'll be recommending this one to everybody I know.

Edit: just a final thought: while the novel-within-a-novel, My Pafology then Fuck, contains elements of Push and Invisible Man, I also detect in it the film Menace 2 Society and the memoir Makes Me Wanna Holler. All in all, My Paf...more

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Nov 14, 2011 Jennifer rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: African-American readers, Readers of Literary prose and dark humor,

After reading "Erasure" I wondered why it took me so long to read something of Everett's. Even though this was originally published 10 years ago, Graywolf Press is re-releasing it and the subject matter has as much relevance now as it did then and, I fear, always will.

I love the balance of voices that he uses for Monk and the punch of the prose. Thelonious Monk feels like he's going crazy by the end but he's still one of the most sane people around. It's almost like a horror movie where you won...more

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Sep 02, 2007 Bonnie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Well - This was an extrememly thought provoking book and I would have given it five stars had it not been so thought provoking at times that I had some difficulty following where the author wanted me to go.

I felt the work dense -- and unfortunately I don't know Latin beyond the rudimentary and it was hard at the end to make sense of the big picture that Everett wqas painting.

But I do understand what he meant by alienation. What happens when you don't belong anywhere? And the issues he speaks to...more

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Nov 06, 2007 Pete rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: just about everyone

Probably my favorite contemporary work of fiction, also one of my favorite all-time novels, and written by one of my two favorite authors. _Erasure_ was mostly marketed as a send-up of the publishing industry (especially in regards to race), and while it performs that function as humorously as you could hope for, its real pleasure for me was its presentation of something I guess you could call the indeterminacy of identity. Our protagonist here is black by white standards and white by black stan...more

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May 22, 2008 William rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: must-read-5-stars

I had a lot of fun with this book...from his waaay over the top novel within a novel..to the imagined conversations of historical figures..it was a book I was anxious to get back to. Also included was a rather sad piece of family dynamics that the majority of the baby booming generation is currently facing..the aging of ones parents...Its not often one finds historical hilarity, skewering of authors and the publishing game, racial perceptions and stereotypes and family drama all wrapped into one...more

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Mar 14, 2009 carolime rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: book-club-z

preachy. self-involved. oft-times offensive in the very way that his character is offended. i wonder if this is one of the book's strategies-- offending you so that you understand how the 'poor protagonist' feels. i found the "literary remarks" to be stodgy and pretentious. for example, the narrator is woodworking in his shop when he is suddenly reminded of theories of language and his own existential angst. oh give me a break! this is yet another book where the author is thinly guising his own...more

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Apr 24, 2013 Bill rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literary

A Double Satire of Black Fiction.

Everett, P. (2001). Erasure. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.

Thelonious (Monk) Ellison is a black English professor who has a hard time getting his unapproachable intellectual novels published. He is supremely ticked off when some middle-class housewife publishes a hugely successful, exploitative, slice of life novel, "We's Lives in Da Ghetto." Out of cynicism, malice and frustration, Monk knocks out his own blaxploitation work, "My Pafology" under t...more A Double Satire of Black Fiction.

Everett, P. (2001). Erasure. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.

Thelonious (Monk) Ellison is a black English professor who has a hard time getting his unapproachable intellectual novels published. He is supremely ticked off when some middle-class housewife publishes a hugely successful, exploitative, slice of life novel, "We's Lives in Da Ghetto." Out of cynicism, malice and frustration, Monk knocks out his own blaxploitation work, "My Pafology" under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh. This novella is printed in full within "Erasure" and it is hilarious.

"Hey man," I say. "What up?" Tito say. "Whatchew doin standin out here?" I ax. "Fatman say I gotta smoke out here. He say no mo' smokin inside." "What the fuck? What kinda pool room you got to smoke outside?"

Stereotypical as it is, Everett's ear for dialog is pitch perfect and a delight to read. The story, "My Pafology" (later simplified simply to "Fuck"), is a supposed autobiographical vignette, highly satirical of the black-ghetto genre, but it actually reminded me of Claude Brown's Manchild in the Promised Land.

I loved the embedded novella and I would say it is worth the price of Erasure. But that makes the joke on me, right? My Pafology is a ridiculous satire and a vicious parody of a writing style, a hoax by an angry author, but I liked it! Everett wrote it with great skill and knowledge to achieve that effect. So what kind of a joke is that? An angry insult to me? A laugh-together wink? I'm not sure if I've been had, but I laughed throughout the process.

The rest of Erasure continues with Monk, the frustrated author, having increasing difficulty hiding his true identity when "Mr. Leigh" is invited to appear on talk shows and as the big bucks roll in. That part is also deliciously ironic and satirical of the publishing and media industries. In a way, Erasure is the prototype for Adam Langers' "Thieves of Manhattan (2010)

There is also a realistic component in which Monk must deal with his aging mother who suffers from dementia. That part of the story was mundane, no doubt for contrast, in case you did not get the surrealism of Stagg R. Leigh's satire within a satire. That was overkill, I thought, but like the rest of the book, it is written with high wit, a good ear, and great skill. (less)

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Sep 16, 2012 Gwen rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: literary-spinach

Someone pointed out this book while I was reading a discussion on another site about the issues of race and publishing in America. The book addresses the popularity of the urban fiction genre (books like Push/Precious), and what that means for African-American authors who want to escape being pigeon-holed into writing about certain subjects pertaining to racial identity. This book makes the subject entertaining and most of the characters believable and sympathetic.

The plot is really split into t...more Someone pointed out this book while I was reading a discussion on another site about the issues of race and publishing in America. The book addresses the popularity of the urban fiction genre (books like Push/Precious), and what that means for African-American authors who want to escape being pigeon-holed into writing about certain subjects pertaining to racial identity. This book makes the subject entertaining and most of the characters believable and sympathetic.

The plot is really split into three threads. Monk, the main character, wishes to publish experimental literary fiction, but he feels pressure by his agent to write a book about race, while he also watches the urban fiction author of We's Lives in Da Ghetto go on Kenya Dunston (a parody of the Oprah Winfrey show) to promote her book. Monk's sister is murdered, and he finds himself taking care of his mother who is in the progressive stages of alzheimer's disease. Meanwhile, he tells us the story of his brother Bill, who comes out to his wife and two children, then must deal with the struggles of being an openly gay black man.

At first I wondered if he wasn't juggling too many topics, because I was interested in all three, but the book kept changing the subject just as I was getting into one of them. Then I hit the middle section, which is a 60-page story called My Pafology by Stagg R. Leigh, an urban lit book that Monk starts writing while taking care of his mother as a form of stress relief, then sends it to his agent to see if it would sell as a parody. Only the book gets accepted as a serious depiction of the African-American experience, and now he feels pressure to take the money and guest appearances offered to him, and to become a sell-out who is misrepresenting the community as a whole, because he needs the cash to look after his family.

It is the third section of the book which managed to weave together most of what he started in the first act. I could see how everything in the novel and the meta-novel was selected to show the contrast between Monk and his fictional character's viewpoint of the world. I was impressed how much this book kept me reading and eager to find out what happens next, because I've read far too many literary fiction books lately that just drag on with too much filler. There are some unnecessary scenes provided to flesh out Monk's personality throughout the book, but Everett seems aware of the tendency of information unrelated to the plot to weigh the book down, and he keeps these pretty short, usually a brief paragraph.

I also felt a lot of empathy with Monk and his situation with his mother, because I've been through something similar with taking care of my own grandmother. Everett really does a good job of presenting the conflicting feelings that arise with that situation. I think everyone worries about putting their parent into a assisted care facility, and it's hard to admit that the time is right, when there is also the risk that if you wait too long, something could happen to them. It's a very scary situation to go through.

My only disappointment is with the third plot thread about Bill, which tapers off to nowhere, nor does Bill leave the story under circumstances that are made particularly clear. I was very interested in Bill and really would have liked to see some sort of resolution to this thread.

I mostly liked this book, however, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the subject. I just wonder if this might had been improved a bit if it had also mentioned similar problems faced by more mainstream or genre authors looking to publish on a subject other than race.

I mean, I totally believe his argument that he's being pigeon-holed as a African-American writer, because I've seen enough stories about it from other people on the internet to know this is a real phenomenon, but it makes it a bit harder to make a case with an experimental literary novel, because, let's face it, not many people buy or read much of that stuff. Experimental books are going to be tough to sell to a publisher no matter who you are. And there are degrees of intelligence in storytelling between a semantic breakdown of an academic critique of a literary novel like F/V: Placing the Experimental Novel and We's Lives in Da Ghetto that are not acknowledged by this book, because the author seems to think commercial fiction beneath him, and I find that disappointing.(less)

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Jun 29, 2012 Jamilla Rice rated it 5 of 5 stars

Thus my P.E. obsession loses its vestigial tail and sprouts wings . . .

Initially, I wanted to read through a few reviews to see how anyone really had the

balls
gumption
cojones
intestinal fortitude
audacity
insipidness
ignorance
love

to write a review.

My favorite artist is Basquiat. "Is" because although he is dead, he lives on through the massiveness of his art. Anyone who has seen his art in the flesh (and they do seem to be breathing, layers upon layers of thoughts like skin whispering to be peeled...more

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May 16, 2012 Carl Brush rated it 5 of 5 stars

This conversation between the artists de Kooning and Rauschenberg

appears in the middle of Percival Everett’s Erasure. Apparently something like this actually happened, but never mind. Everett’s version is at the heart of the title and spirit of the novel.

Rauschenberg exchanges a roof repair job for one of de Kooning’s drawings. Four weeks later:

Rauschenberg: Well, it took me forty erasers, but I did it.

de Kooning: Did what?

R: Erased it. The picture you drew for me.

K: You erased my picture?

...more

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Aug 08, 2011 Ben Miller rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There is a huge writerly risk taken on nearly ever page of Erasure, and the fact that each part of the book functions more or less equally well is a testament to Percival Everett's skill and hard work. What Erasure sets out to do is ambitious; a quietly affecting family drama grafted into a more high-register secret identity farce. Let's not forget the book-inside-a-book, or the epistolary shards scattered through the pages. Or issues of race and class, treated in ways that are familiar but reso...more There is a huge writerly risk taken on nearly ever page of Erasure, and the fact that each part of the book functions more or less equally well is a testament to Percival Everett's skill and hard work. What Erasure sets out to do is ambitious; a quietly affecting family drama grafted into a more high-register secret identity farce. Let's not forget the book-inside-a-book, or the epistolary shards scattered through the pages. Or issues of race and class, treated in ways that are familiar but resonant.

Thelonious "Monk" Ellison (I keep wanting to call him Ralph) is a writer and college professor whose career is hitting the skids. He's written a metafictional novel (I guess) of garbled academic noodling that, unsurprisingly, no one wants to buy. His mother is developing Alzheimer's, his brother has just come out as gay, and his sister Lisa is working in the somehow controversial field of women's health. As events turn against him, and draw him away from one unhappy life and into another, Monk writes a frustrated parody of a absurd (and popular) novel called "We's Lives in da Ghetto". All sounds promising, right? It's an auspicious premise that Everett delivers on,but perhaps not in the ways you expect.

One of the best things about Erasure is the fact that Everett has a keen eye for the reader's enjoyment. He's no preacher, and he wisely implicates his narrator in every little snag of guilt or deceit--meaning that we are in the boat with Monk, for better or worse. Monk's kind of a loser (though I would kill to have his resume, of which we share only one line: MFA, Fiction, UC Irvine), and I recognize how it feels to be that kind of loser: lonely and not very useful. There's plenty to like about Monk, too: He's bright and sharp-witted and trying hard to be as good as he can.

Any trace of self-righteousness would destroy the book, cause a fissure right down its binding. But thankfully there is none. It's funny. Melancholy. Angry, with an anger that is well-articulated and communicable. You, the reader, are going to catch it. When the book is mean, when it picks on certain characters, it does so out of love. Love of writing and reading, and of writers and readers, I think, and frustration at how difficult they sometimes make that love. A few of the caricatures are overly broad, but most of them ring true.

This book feels honest, unlike the one it contains ("My Pafology" aka "Fuck"), and universal by virtue of its idiosyncrasy. Its emotional depth is genuine, resisting the cheap thrills that make "My Pafology/Fuck" such a hit. And even though "MP/F" is a terrible novel, its wholesale inclusion in the text does not drag Erasure down. It is readably terrible, and I actually found myself feeling for the protagonist, Van Go Jenkins, even though I knew I wasn't supposed to, that even within the artifice of the novel he wasn't real. I could see this book actually doing well--that's the frighteningly effective thing about it. It's not a far cry from books I've really read (Ricardo Cortez's "Straight Outta Compton" comes to mind).

In the end, Erasure seems uncompromising, full of erudition from high and low sources. You'll find at least 4 languages, along with the lyrics to Dust Bowl ballads and poetic vignettes on trout fishing. Exactly the opposite of the entirely un-nuanced "MP/F," and I suspect that's why it was published by a small, respectable university press and not by one of the major houses.

Seek out a copy where you may.(less)

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Aug 10, 2010 Tsehay rated it 5 of 5 stars

Nutshell: Educated, black, literary novelist takes the piss at the gangsta or street books that is all the rave these days.

His gripe seems to be the racial profiling of the 'black experience'. He seems bitter that the urban books are selling like hotcakes, crowding the shelves of bookstores everywhere while people who write of his genre (the re-telling of Greek classics) struggle to make sales. He constantly asks himself, whatever happened to style and skill? Whatever happened to intelligent wo...more Nutshell: Educated, black, literary novelist takes the piss at the gangsta or street books that is all the rave these days.

His gripe seems to be the racial profiling of the 'black experience'. He seems bitter that the urban books are selling like hotcakes, crowding the shelves of bookstores everywhere while people who write of his genre (the re-telling of Greek classics) struggle to make sales. He constantly asks himself, whatever happened to style and skill? Whatever happened to intelligent word play and a literary voice that explores the depth of artistic expression?

His character kind of broods and ponders throughout the book with a kind of nonchalant, fuck-it-all outlook. In a bitter and almost amused moment, (after a best-selling book called 'We's Lives in Da Ghetto' hit the charts) the main character decides to bang out a gritty, urban street book laden with lewdness, pornographic scenes, ebonics and gangsta/street life clichés. He writes it in about a week under the psuedonym Stagg Leigh and sends it off to his editor or agent out of sheer amusement. Much to his horror and amazement the book racks up sales. Editors and prestigious book organizations rave about the 'realness' of it. When the book begins to get too much attention (movie rights, talk shows) he is forced to face the painful truth that he had 'sold out' and perhaps so had the publishing industry with this fairly new genre of books.

Now, admittedly I've never been ga-ga for urban-type books (albeit my shitty self-published novel). But I have to say, this author took a controversial risk in writing this novel. The book contained a novella-length excerpt of his street novel and though I scanned through this excerpt because I couldn't get into it, I couldn't help but think...oh my god! He is unabashedly mocking Zane, Omar Tyree, Sister Souljah, Nikki Turner, Teri Woods etc etc (Triple Crown Publications! Yikes!)

I felt guilty for finding the book so funny and intriguing. Everett writes with intelligent satire. Towards the end I was literally cracking up. The novel begs the question...can a black novelist simply be a novelist without the book theme having to be 'black enough' and thus misrepresenting the mass of blacks who simply cannot relate to urban lit?

As a 'Jane Eyre' girl who prefers the classics (but respects and appreciates the demand for urban books), I found this novel to be a truly refreshing, enjoyable and stimulating read.
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May 11, 2010 Spanakos rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: thinklit

If you read or watched Precious/Push you need to read this book. Everett brilliantly satirizes virtually everything in this novel about black novelist whose only crime is trying to write highly intellectual fiction. Bookstores do not know where to place him, the academic world is also ambivalent, and the market does not treat him much better. He abhors the bestselling novels in "African American Fiction" sections which involve poor spelling, stories based in ghettos, which assume an air of authe...more

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Feb 12, 2010 Becca rated it 4 of 5 stars

The anti-Precious! Just as Mo'Nique is set to win an Oscar for the cinematic adaptation of "Push", Percival Everett poses the question: Why the high praise? Is "Push" as honest as its champions claim, or is it hailed because it reinforces accepted stereotypes?

"Push" claims to shed light on an invisible character in American popular culture: An obese, illiterate, twice-pregnant black teen. While Precious-types aren't a common sight Hollywood, I've read interviews from the likes of Oprah and Tyler...more

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Dec 14, 2009 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars

Percival Everett has been a wonderfully unexpected discovery for me this year. Here is this guy doing exactly the sort of thing I'm interested in (smart satire, lapsing into deeply felt surrealism, of contemporary culture), and he's hiding in broad daylight. He has something like twenty books out, and, having now sampled four from different points in his career, I'm inclined to expect that they're all pretty awesome and pretty different from one another. Yet I'd only heard of him once before I p...more

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Nov 12, 2009 Eugene rated it 4 of 5 stars

ERASURE was published eight years ago, in 2001, before the J.T. Leroy hoax was outed and before the eerily echoing current debate over the film PRECIOUS. it's hard to discuss the novel without talking about its elaborate plot and book-within-a-book structure. here's PW's gloss:

Thelonius "Monk" Ellison is an erudite, accomplished but seldom-read author who insists on writing obscure literary papers rather than the so-called "ghetto prose" that would make him a commercial success. He finally succu...more ERASURE was published eight years ago, in 2001, before the J.T. Leroy hoax was outed and before the eerily echoing current debate over the film PRECIOUS. it's hard to discuss the novel without talking about its elaborate plot and book-within-a-book structure. here's PW's gloss:

Thelonius "Monk" Ellison is an erudite, accomplished but seldom-read author who insists on writing obscure literary papers rather than the so-called "ghetto prose" that would make him a commercial success. He finally succumbs to temptation after seeing the Oberlin-educated author of We's Lives in da Ghetto during her appearance on a talk show, firing back with a parody called My Pafology, which he submits to his startled agent under the gangsta pseudonym of Stagg R. Leigh. Ellison quickly finds himself with a six-figure advance from a major house, a multimillion-dollar offer for the movie rights and a monster bestseller on his hands. ...Ellison becomes a judge for a major book award and My Pafology (title changed to Fuck) gets nominated, forcing the author to come to terms with his perverse literary joke.

i once heard a writer complain how difficult it is to write satire these days -- when the satire and the satiree both show up on the letterman show, mug at each other's jokes, and then laugh together all the way to the bank. that is, there's a complicity in most so-called satirical entertainment with the essential mode and delivery methods of what is being satirized.

ERASURE isn't like this. its satire stings because it's generous and complicated enough to shame and indict all of us for the creation and maintenance of a market-driven intellectual life, a literary culture that rewards sensation and provocation over art, and an unquestioned and reductive -- even internalized -- racist ideology.

for a more in-depth overview of some of everett's source material, check out this review by bernard bell, which, while analyzing well what the book does, also ends itself with a sly (if i'm reading it right) criticism of the protaganist's (and maybe the author's) vantage of privledge: "Contrary to the popularity in the academies of anti-essentialist arguments by postmodern critics, the authority, authenticity, and agency of the identities of most African Americans emanate most distinctively and innovatively from the particularity of our historical struggle against slavery and its legacy of antiblack racism in the United States."

what ellison the character argues in ERASURE is that blackness is, must be, wide enough to include his own subjectivity. however, forces both within and without this novel refuse to cooperate, assigning the black identity only to a particular (romanticized and fetishized) “inner-city,” “gritty,” and “ghetto” experience. everett screams foul at such a distortion. ishmael reed agrees, having written a few years before this article on the scapegoat idea of a "black pathology" (a phrase which everett uses to name his street lit parody). reed writes: "The only difference between white pathology and black pathology is that white pathology is underreported."

but all the above discussion aside for a moment, let’s acknowledge too that, while freighted with heavy consequence and while trying to make real points and to hit its targets hard – ERASURE is a pleasure to read, mostly for its patient, uproarious but never overwrought nor sensational prose. what a touch it is to be all in one book: deadly serious, furious, and howlingly funny.

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Aug 27, 2012 John Pappas rated it 4 of 5 stars

There are many erasures -- personal, cultural, racial -- at the center of Everett's novel, that work to define, or redefine, the characters and their relationships with one another and prevent them from seeing, either personally or collectively, what really exists. When the latest manuscript of an African-American writer of esoteric and highly theoretical fictional works is roundly rejected by publishers, he creates an alter-ego, "Stagg R. Lee" and writes a novel in dialect about life in the ghe...more

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Dec 14, 2007 megan rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: smarties

Shelves: best-ever, genre-bender, satire, rad

i love this book. i wish john would give it back to me. it is about a black author who, frustrated that his overintellectual experimental novels get no readers bc they get put in the 'black' sections in bkstores, decides to write a satirical 'ghetto lit' book (which is titled "My Pafology" and later changed to "FUCK") which is taken seriously and becomes a bestseller. really interesting indictment of the publishing industry's marketing practices and a whole lot of other things.

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Jul 28, 2011 Phil rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century

I would without hesitation stack this book up against any great postmodern work--Coetzee, the magical realists, anyone. The conception of the book is brilliant. The plot centers around Thelonious Ellison, an African-American writer of dense and unreadable prose whose aesthetic includes heavy reliance on retellings of Greek myths. As a joking parody, he writes a novel mimicing the degradingly stereotypical We Lives In Da Ghetto (his literary arch-nemisis), which Ellison publishes under the pseudo...more

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Mar 25, 2013 Larry rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

A great novel, packed with contradictions: page-turner absorbing, yet deeply thought-provoking. Laugh-out-loud funny yet deeply serious. About racial identity while condemning the whole concept of racial identity.

Monk Ellison is a dour academic and Literary (with a capital L) author, born into an affluent, professional African-American family which defines itself by education and intellect rather than by race. Enraged by the success of an exploitative "black" novel, Monk dashes off a farcical "b...more

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Nov 15, 2011 Ryandake rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

percival everett's works are so interestingly uneven... sometimes genius, sometimes slapstick. i can't really pigeonhole his books at all.

parts of this book are so incredibly moving--the mother's disintegration, the inability of the brothers to talk, the protagonist's frustrations at the assumption that there is one "black literature."

but then he goes and makes caricatures of women who exhibit some sexuality (Linda, in particular) and allows his characters to pretty much blow off the issue of h...more

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May 04, 2010 E. Thomas rated it 3 of 5 stars

Percival Everett takes on a lot in this far-ranging, contempt-derived satire. His narrator Theolonius Ellison, nicknamed Monk, gives up the unprofitable career of writing intelligent, aesthetically rigorous novels to move home and care for his mother. Around the same time he writes a Precious-style novel in the ghetto patois familiar to fans of 50 Cent. It is a piece of doggerel, purposely bad, lurid, and affirmative of every African-American stereotype. Refusing credit, he has it published unde...more

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Mar 26, 2010 Stephen Burrows rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I really like this novel, it accomplished many things, asked many questions and was a very accessible read.

The main plot, about a frustrated African-American writer who isn't "black" enough for a market he isn't trying to be a part of, is an excellent satire about the perception of race in America; the need to pigeon-hole everything to be able to market it; and also the pack-mania of the book buying public.

But where this book really excels are the passages in which Everett describes the chain of...more

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Apr 20, 2009 Janet rated it 5 of 5 stars

Dazzling. An arch, clever, often sad, and very, very funny entertainment satirizing the publishing world and commenting incisively on writerly woes of "not being black enough" and, well, not being read enough. Contains an entire, deliberately bad, sassy and profane novel-within-a-novel that completely changes the reading experience for a while but is well worth the slogging through. (Note: if you just can't slog through "My Pafology", at least read its last page carefully, or you will miss an am...more

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Aug 15, 2009 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars

There's a novel within a novel that appears towards the tail end of the first 3rd of this book that I must confess I mostly didn't read. Much like Erasure's protagonist, Monk--and he wrote this piece of work--I couldn't bring myself to do it. The language is too ridiculous. The characters too much satire, too much buffoonery, simply too much. That I didn't read it, however, I doubt matters much to the story. The point is that Monk wrote it. Wrote it as a giant middle finger to the world. And, ye...more

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Jul 01, 2012 Julie rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Anyone who enjoyed Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Shelves: 2012, experience_african-american, author_african-american, author_male, books_abt_books, humor, pub_post-1945, type_fiction

Wonderful study of what it feels like to be an outsider. The twist here is that the outsider in question is an African American man who doesn’t feel he fits into the stereotyped categories society expects of him. Can’t dance, can’t play basketball, can’t talk jive. Instead, he writes novels no one understands about obscure topics only a few academics find interesting. Until he rebels and writes a parody of what he observes society expects someone who looks like him would write. The result is an...more

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African American ...: Erasure: Finding Humor in Racism	1	12	Sep 03, 2012 10:29pm
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About Percival Everett

Percival L. Everett (born 1956) is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.

There might not be a more fertile mind in American fiction today than Everett’s. In 22 years, he has written 19 books, including a farcical Western, a savage satire of the publishing industry, a children’s story spoofing counting books, retellings of the Greek myths...more

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Trivia About Erasure

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“Linda Mallory is the postmodern fuck.” — 5 people liked it

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