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Erasure

A Novel

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Erasure

Written by: Percival Everett
Narrated by: Sean Crisden
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About this listen

Percival Everett's blistering satire about race and publishing, now as the Oscar-nominated film, American Fiction, directed by Cord Jefferson and starring Jeffrey Wright and Tracee Ellis Ross.

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.

©2001 Percival Everett (P)2023 Tantor Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Comedy Witty
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Satire may just be the fictional genre best suited to audio format. This book supports my proposition. I listened to the whole of it in a single day. I laughed out loud.

This really works as an audiobook.

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So many layers of personality. From the dry, bleak humour that still delights and makes you cringe. This book is entertaining and provactive, and recognizable especially for any POC working in the arts.

The narrator does the work to bring all the characters and personalities to life. One of the best audio performances I’ve ever heard.

Satire at its best

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