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4.19 AVERAGE
4.19 AVERAGE
Picked it up yesterday. Finished it today. Veers from provocative to horrifying to funny and back again at a breakneck pace. Unclassifiable. Unforgettable.
dark
funny
medium-paced
an insightful and impactful book that i think benefits going in somewhat blindly. there are murders occurring all over the south, white men found with black men who keep disappearing. this book speaks on police violence, racism in america and its persistence despite our disbelief, and an education on a sinister, unspoken genocide through lynching. a lot of repetition but i believe that was to hammer home the inanity of the horrors done upon minorities, specifically black peoples, by white people. i was really impressed with this book and can’t wait to read more Everett.
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Blood
Moderate: Fatphobia, Gore, Hate crime, Racial slurs, Racism, Violence, Murder
The author manages to insert a decent amount of humor into this book, which is a sign of good writing in a book about murder and racism. My favorite was the naming of one character Junior Junior. This book turned out to be something different than what I expected, but I can't say more without spoiling it.
challenging
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I am writing this on December 31, 2024.
I started 2024 having never heard of Percival Everett, much less having read any of his work, only discovering his existence after I watched American Fiction, the film adaptation of his novel Erasure. I read Erasure soon thereafter, absolutely loving it, including its obvious satire and biting commentary on race. Erasure is a masterpiece of postmodern meta narrative, which is right up my alley as a reader and consumer of films and TV as well. Here is my review for that novel: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6291474928.
And then like the hordes of other readers this year, I read Everett's James, which won the National Book Award in 2024 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. And while I did not love that novel quite as much as Erasure due to two material plot points, I still found it funny, incisive, and a masterful achievement in taking Mark Twain's Huck Finn and subverting the narratives and tropes of the original. Here is my review for that novel: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6561102741
This led me to pick up Everett's penultimate novel Trees, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022. This novel may be the best of the three I have read -- and has made Everett quite possibly my favorite living author when I had not even heard of him 11 months ago.
The Trees, so named due to its obvious subject matter of lynching, is told in the United States in 2018 when two white individuals in Money, Mississippi, the location where Emmett Till was infamously lynched, are found brutally murdered, literally emasculated, and in the presence of a black corpse holding their newly shorn testicles. This serves as the Macguffin that starts the propulsive novel that just doesn't let up.
While meta at points, this novel follows a more conventional narrative format like James, unlike Erasure which is pieced together from dialogue, vignettes, and other sources.
Everett utilizes his trademark short, staccato, Hemingwayesque prose to full effect here, using short sentences and short chapters to keep the narrative moving and the reader engaged.
Everett's trademark humor also shines through. Most novels that are commonly held to be "funny" I don't find funny or at best get a smirk out of me. This novel, along with the other two by Everett I have read, made me laugh out loud on multiple occasions with its ridiculous character names, hysterical plot points, and satirizing of real-life villains, along with thinly veiled caricatures of other cretins that populate our country. At one point, there is a character named Carl Winslow with a daughter named "Laurel" Winslow -- which you just don't find this day and age ... some people say it's even harder to find.
As to the social message and racial commentary, many have incorrectly claimed this is a novel that focuses on the Southern legacy of racism, lynching, and discrimination. That misses the point. It isn't a Southern legacy; it is an American legacy, as established by all the cities and all the individuals lynched in American history. At certain points in the narrative, Everett actually lists the cities in which lynchings have occurred and the names of hundreds of victims -- proving that this isn't a Mississippi phenomenon -- but an American one.
As for the story itself, it's terrific. I won't delve because I don't want to spoil anything. But Everett engages in a masterful plot, having a literary novel that plays with the tropes and story structure of a police procedural/murder mystery. He clearly did his homework to have the law enforcement officials speak like stereotypical law enforcement officials from your everyday pulp novel or Law and Order episode.
The only quibble I have with the novel is that Everett left some meat on the bone. I thought he could've explored the world he created more, the motivations of the characters, or fleshed out the plot. This makes me mark down the book ever so slightly.
4.75 stars. (Edit: on second thought, I'm giving this five stars.)
I'm looking forward to reading more of Everett's backlist in 2025.
I started 2024 having never heard of Percival Everett, much less having read any of his work, only discovering his existence after I watched American Fiction, the film adaptation of his novel Erasure. I read Erasure soon thereafter, absolutely loving it, including its obvious satire and biting commentary on race. Erasure is a masterpiece of postmodern meta narrative, which is right up my alley as a reader and consumer of films and TV as well. Here is my review for that novel: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6291474928.
And then like the hordes of other readers this year, I read Everett's James, which won the National Book Award in 2024 and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. And while I did not love that novel quite as much as Erasure due to two material plot points, I still found it funny, incisive, and a masterful achievement in taking Mark Twain's Huck Finn and subverting the narratives and tropes of the original. Here is my review for that novel: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6561102741
This led me to pick up Everett's penultimate novel Trees, which was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2022. This novel may be the best of the three I have read -- and has made Everett quite possibly my favorite living author when I had not even heard of him 11 months ago.
The Trees, so named due to its obvious subject matter of lynching, is told in the United States in 2018 when two white individuals in Money, Mississippi, the location where Emmett Till was infamously lynched, are found brutally murdered, literally emasculated, and in the presence of a black corpse holding their newly shorn testicles. This serves as the Macguffin that starts the propulsive novel that just doesn't let up.
While meta at points, this novel follows a more conventional narrative format like James, unlike Erasure which is pieced together from dialogue, vignettes, and other sources.
Everett utilizes his trademark short, staccato, Hemingwayesque prose to full effect here, using short sentences and short chapters to keep the narrative moving and the reader engaged.
Everett's trademark humor also shines through. Most novels that are commonly held to be "funny" I don't find funny or at best get a smirk out of me. This novel, along with the other two by Everett I have read, made me laugh out loud on multiple occasions with its ridiculous character names, hysterical plot points, and satirizing of real-life villains, along with thinly veiled caricatures of other cretins that populate our country. At one point, there is a character named Carl Winslow with a daughter named "Laurel" Winslow -- which you just don't find this day and age ... some people say it's even harder to find.
As to the social message and racial commentary, many have incorrectly claimed this is a novel that focuses on the Southern legacy of racism, lynching, and discrimination. That misses the point. It isn't a Southern legacy; it is an American legacy, as established by all the cities and all the individuals lynched in American history. At certain points in the narrative, Everett actually lists the cities in which lynchings have occurred and the names of hundreds of victims -- proving that this isn't a Mississippi phenomenon -- but an American one.
As for the story itself, it's terrific. I won't delve because I don't want to spoil anything. But Everett engages in a masterful plot, having a literary novel that plays with the tropes and story structure of a police procedural/murder mystery. He clearly did his homework to have the law enforcement officials speak like stereotypical law enforcement officials from your everyday pulp novel or Law and Order episode.
The only quibble I have with the novel is that Everett left some meat on the bone. I thought he could've explored the world he created more, the motivations of the characters, or fleshed out the plot. This makes me mark down the book ever so slightly.
4.75 stars. (Edit: on second thought, I'm giving this five stars.)
I'm looking forward to reading more of Everett's backlist in 2025.
challenging
dark
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
reflective
sad
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
A difficult and important read. Captures the fury felt during this recent (and recurring) moment in US history.
4.5/5
An important book about the darkness of racism in the US. It was unexpectedly hilarious and pokes fun at a certain president.
“Your wife is safe, sir.”
“Melanie?”
“Melania, sir”
An important book about the darkness of racism in the US. It was unexpectedly hilarious and pokes fun at a certain president.
“Your wife is safe, sir.”
“Melanie?”
“Melania, sir”
This was a nutty and intense read -- the nuttiness is apparent from the get go in both the outlandishness of the plot and the bouncing, irreverent dialogue of the characters. The intensity creeps up on you, and it's not until close to the end that Everett reveals his hand, as it were, and hammers home a powerful reminder of the importance of remembrance (//resurrection) to communities who have been harmed by and throughout history (which, for the avoidance of doubt, includes the present day). Really looking forward to exploring the rest of this author's work.