Review of ​Erasure by Percival Everett

​Erasure by Percival Everett is a novel about a writer, Monk, who, after many failed attempts to get his current manuscript published, decides to capitulate to stereotypes of the Black community by writing a novel that satirizes his contemporaries. He needs the money after his sister, an abortion doctor, is murdered and his mother’s Alzheimer’s begins to consume her. Monk’s older brother as well is having money troubles after his affair with another man leads to his divorce and little custody with his children. Monk sees the success of another Black writer, Jaunita Mae Jenkins, whose novel, We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, is massively successful but completely stereotypical and uninformed. Monk is so fed up with seeing that novel garner attention, he decides to write his own, satirizing Jenkins and the institutions that prop her writing up. He pens the novel, Fuck, under a pseudonym, Stagg R. Leigh. When Monk sends the manuscript to his agent, his agent is super wary of his reputation being smeared. Though, very quickly, the novel gets bought for six hundred thousand dollars, with the film rights being sold after for three million. Monk is astounded at how the world thinks Stagg’s novel is “raw”, but due to financial constraints, he decides to go with the act. Monk is then put on an award committee, where soon all the judges rave about Fuck, picking it as their winner. At the end, Monk has become fed up with how everyone doesn’t see how terrible of a novel Fuck is, so when Stagg is called up to receive the award, Monk goes up to reveal he was the real author. Other plotlines involve Monk’s mother’s health worsening, Monk’s brother being in and out in their mother’s time of need, the housekeeper marrying a guard from their summer home neighborhood, and Monk’s fling with a neighbor from their summer home.
 
One of the most notable things in Erasure is that the novel, Fuck, isn’t just referenced in the novel, but it’s fully written in it. A novel within a novel. This allows for the reader to truly understand the breadth of satire that Monk is trying to achieve. Everett isn’t afraid to insert whole lectures, Monk’s CV, a scene of a Black man on a game show, and bits of other novel ideas. It’s a somewhat experimental and metafictional text. And while I initially found the game show moment to be odd (it’s a whole different character and situation), it showed that the Black man was supposed to be someone who lost the game show with difficult questions, while the white man he was competing with had simple questions. The novel at times is humorous and strange, but that’s what I felt enhanced the absurdity of everyone loving Stagg’s novel.
 
Final Rating: 4.5/5