Percival Everett is a genius

And I'm late to the party.

A few weeks ago, I posted the trailer to a movie called Precious, based on Sapphire's novel Push. Push is narrated by an illiterate teen named Precious who has been molested by her father and abused by her mom; told in Precious' own misspelled vernacular, the story sees her giving birth to her second baby at the age of sixteen as she struggles to learn to write with the aid of a teacher named Blue Rain. I loved this book when it came out in 1999 -- way before I started teaching writing to at-risk teens -- and it has remained on my top ten list since then.

Fellow author Tayari Jones linked to my post from her blog, and mentioned some issues she had with the book, recommending that people who read Push also read Percival Everett's 2001 novel, Erasure. The suggestion was seconded here on my blog by author Martha Southgate, who said, "I think it might help you understand why some African-Americans have significant problems with this novel...The popularity of this narrative and the absence of competing ones is, as an African-American writer, I think, highly problematic."

So when I hear the same thing from two smart women, I'm going to listen. I went looking for Erasure in the bookstores by my house; when I found that they didn't carry it, I ordered it online. And when it came, I put aside The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and read it at once. 

HOLY SHIT. This is a great book. 

Everett's narrator, Thelonious "Monk" Ellison, is the polar opposite of Sapphire's Precious -- the hyperliterate son of middle-class suburban parents, Monk writes obscure post-modern novels reinterpreting Greek classics, until, incensed by the success of a novel called We's Lives in da Ghetto (seeing it, Monk says, "was like strolling through an antique mall, feeling good, liking the sunny day and then turning the corner to find a display of watermelon-eating, banjo-playing darkie carvings and a pyramid of Mammy cookie jars"), he writes a send-up of "ghetto fiction" called My Pafology (later renamed Fuck). The book becomes a runaway success, allowing Monk to care for his mother, now suffering from Alzheimers, after the death of his sister, an abortion provider shot to death by protestors.

I can't properly describe the effect this book has -- it's by turns funny, sad, beautiful, ugly, poignant, and ridiculous. It made me laugh; it made me angry; it made me happy, guilty, astounded, and, most of all, incredibly jealous of the talent that produced it. 

I loved it so much, I immediately read Everett's latest novel, I Am Not Sidney Poitier, the story of a young man named Not Sidney Poitier whose working-class mother struck it rich by investing in the Turner Broadcasting Network and then died. Raised in Turner's house, he strikes out as a young man into a race-crazed America he doesn't understand, one that doesn't understand him either. More of a comic novel than Erasure, I Am Not Sidney Poitier is equally brilliant, if less serious.

I wrote to thank Tayari for recommending Everett's work. Did it affect your experience with Push? she asked. 

Yes and no, I said.

I met Sapphire in 1993, when I was attending a lot of poetry readings, and giving a few myself. She was on the verge of publishing her first book of poetry, American Dreams, and she lived around the corner from me in Prospect Heights (which in those days was still kind of, as Monk's alter ego would have it, "da Ghetto"). There was and is no question for me that Sapphire is the real thing, and that her writing is based on her real experience of being brought up by abusive, working-class parents. I continued to follow her career, so I knew that she'd started teaching writing to at-risk teenagers, and when Push came out, I could tell that the character of Blue Rain in Push was based on her; I assumed that Precious was based on the students she encountered in her program. God knows, I've certainly encountered a few Preciouses in my time; I even quoted a few in Girlbomb and Have You Found Her. Are portraits of these girls "banjo-playing darkie carvings?"

I don't know. But now I know that they can be seen that way, especially by some African-American writers who are tired of seeing people with similar skin tones to theirs represented in the same old way -- illiterate, abused, downtrodden -- while other, less stereotyped portrayals of African-American characters go ignored by white reading audiences. 

So I'll second Martha Southgate's comment on this blog: "Please check out Everett's novel after you read [Push]. Please." I did, and I'm glad.

Comments

[satia]

My friend who is working on a novel is trying to write something for herself--a white collar educated African American woman who wants to read herself in a novel without being caricatured as illiterate or angry or any of the other things that frustrate the community.

I am absolutely adding this book to my must read list and will recommend it to her, at your recommendation.

BTW, I am showing tremendous self-restraint because I had a brilliant professor with whom I discussed this issue for hours and hours. But yeah . . . this is me . . . all restrained and shit. (BTW, a few weeks ago my email address was wiped by a virus and this week a cup of coffee wiped out my cell phone so I have no email addresses and/or telephone numbers. If you want to interpret this metaphorically, please do so. In the meantime, tell our mutual loved ones why I am incommunicado and maybe someone will call me so I will have numbers again. Either that or it's time to pull out the hair shirt and become a monk.)

[Janice]

Satia, I look forward to reading your friend's novel! (And I'm sending an email with my number!)

[just another reader]

Erasure is being made into a film, too, with Angela Bassett directing: http://tinyurl.com/nwjh5a.

I, too, read Push when it came out and loved it; I read Erasure recently and only liked it. It didn't stay with me the way Push did (which I just started re-reading in anticipation of the film), perhaps because, as a middle class black woman with an MFA, that character's over-educated voice wasn't new to me, but Precious' voice was. Her experience was not mine, but Sapphire made it so.

[Bryan R. Adams]

I just finished Erasure yesterday. You are right, he is a genius. This book is ridiculous. I look forward to reading the new one, I Am Not Sidney Poitier.
If you like Erasure, you may enjoy some of Stephen Carter's stuff, like The Emperor of Ocean Park and the Palace Council.
Also, Cecil Brown has some stuff that is similar (Days w/o Weather and JiveAss Ni*%er).