About Erasure/American Fiction
Post 1627:
For someone that admires writers and good writing, novels and movies about writers tend to make me nauseous. Art can easily get put on a pedestal or romanticized. That’s gross. Here’s the truth about painters, musicians, writers, sculptors, etc. We do what we do because it comes natural and it’s nice to be good at something and if there’s a way to actually make money at it well then holy balls it’s nice not to have a real job thanks very much.
When a friend gave me Erasure to read, I was hesitant. I knew it had been made into the film American Fiction, but not much else. Without any foreknowledge, I gave it a go.
It’s a very good book. Nice and ludicrous like a proper satire, with a mixture of serious real-world family and relationship stuff.
The premise is not wholly original. It’s the old, Do something as a joke but people start to take it serious and start calling you important premise. My first book was sort of like this. Not as well written and dealing with different issues, but the same idea.
So our main guy is a writer of literature, sort of high-brow stuff that doesn’t fly off the shelves. Being a black man, publishers want him to write a Black book. Seeing the success of others and pretty much despising the entire concept of race-based stories (it’s more nuanced than that but not much) he decides to go over the top and write a ridiculous story of some guy in the hood who just goes full balls with every stupid stereotype black people have to put up with.
White people love it. He can’t believe it, even though it’s almost predictable how elites feel they can identify with the realness of his completely contrived joke of a story.
The movie doesn’t have the guts that the book does. That’s not a surprise. It’s also something like a double irony, having to tone down a scathing satire for being too scathing.
Satire can be tiresome. Once you get the “joke” it’s pretty much done. It takes a skilled writer to set the satire in a readable situation. Here is where the book and movie are best. The stuff with his family is the real strength of the novel. Sad, funny, and at times hopeful. Kurt Vonnegut was my favorite at this—he did satire but surrounded it with insane stories of time travel and science fiction shenanigans. Love that.
Even though the movie is a bit toned down, I liked it a lot. Jeffrey Wright is usually so chill. I liked seeing him getting a bit worked up and unsettled. He’s a great actor. I’m a little surprised they made the movie. Glad they did. Do it like I did. Read it then watch. They’re different enough to be engaging on their own terms. Cheers and see you after.
