Erasure
Erasure — named to The Atlantic’s “Great American Novels” list — is a stellar book. Percival Everett was unknown to me until The Trees made the Booker shortlist in 2022. I read it and thought, “This is different. And lol funny. But serious too.” And then I saw American Fiction and realized it was based on Erasure and thought, “I should read that novel.” And then I thought, “Why am I so unfamiliar with this author, who has published 24 (!!) novels and is so critically acclaimed?” And then I thought, “This whole thought process pretty much illuminates the entire point of Erasure.” (#amthinking)
Like its movie adaptation, Erasure plays with notions of what constitutes a “Black book.” Everett handles satire perfectly. (Same as in The Trees.) Protagonist Monk, an erudite author of obscure and very “writerly” books (that are always shelved with “Black books” despite not being about race), anonymously pens a novel so base and stereotypical that publishers can’t possibly love it. It is titled simply … Fuck. And in a perhaps-not-surprising twist, publishers actually love it.
But there’s more to it, which the film only hints at. The title Erasure comes from an imaginary conversation that Monk writes between artists Willem deKooning and Robert Rauschenberg — R asks deK for a sketch so that he can erase it and pass off his version as his own “art.” (“You sold my picture?” “No, I erased your picture. I sold my erasing.”) From this snippet, to Monk’s fascination with how he feels “set apart” from peers, to Everett’s focus on merging what might be described as “high” and “low” culture (for instance, his discovery of a half-sister who struggles financially and otherwise, which is the opposite of his own well-resourced — both financially and socially — upbringing), Erasure devotes a lot of words to the question of what art is worthy of our society’s focus and why “easy art” often seems to get all the attention.
I guess I myself just spent a lot of words trying to circumnavigate this idea that “thinking” too much often digs the thinker into a deep hole. I’m not sure to what end, but…it’s exactly the kind of thing I like to ponder. #thinkersgottathink
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