James / So Much Blue
After finishing my third and fourth Percival Everett novels — prior to James and So Much Blue, pictured, I had read The Trees and Erasure — I am convinced that this author of 34 books (!) should be considered one of America’s greatest novelists and *also* that his work should be taught in high schools. (Not everyone would like that last take, I am absolutely certain…) I’m repeatedly surprised at how successfully he can make a very readable book (so much more “readable” than I think people might suspect) completely erudite and subversive at the same time. Not to mention super funny.
Here’s a back blurb on So Much Blue, via The Awl: “In a perfect world the novelist Percival Everett would dominate the bestseller list to such a degree that they would need to give him his own category…The man is practically a Goddamn National Treasure.”
Right. So, his work generally doesn’t make bestseller lists (although James, his “retelling” of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, has been getting a ton of buzz), Everett appears to mostly eschew media appearances, he has no social media (quelle horreur!), and I imagine he turns up his nose a bit at the notion of commercial success. In a 2023 Los Angeles Review of Books interview, Everett right off the bat addresses a question regarding an earlier statement … something along the lines of “My goal is to know nothing, and my friends say I’m well on my way.” He then responds to the interviewer’s query about this: “I think it’s that I start working on a novel believing I know something about a subject or the world, and by the time I am at the end of it, I’m pretty much disabused of the fact that I know anything at all about it. At least I have changed my mind, and I like that feeling. I’ve not only grown accustomed to it, but it’s also comforting to me. By extension, I feel like that’s where I should be headed in life. The more I think I’m learning, the less I know.”
Is it just me, or is this is the most stereotypically un-American personality ever?! Yet like I said: I’d love more people to consider Percival Everett as one of America’s greatest living novelists. 🇺🇸📚
originally published on instagram