Percival Everett’s retelling of the Huckleberry Finn story, James: A Novel, has become a worldwide sensation since its publication in early 2024. Anyone asking, “What else has Everett written?” is in for a multi-year treat, since Everett has published 35 books since 1983 — mostly novels, but also short stories and poetry.

In this course, we will read and discuss three of his award-winning novels: Erasure (2001); I Am Not Sidney Poitier (2009); and The Trees (2021). Though these three novels are quite different from each other, they all feature Everett’s remarkable ability to use humor — he refers to himself as “pathologically ironic” — to get at serious American issues of race, class, and identity.

American novelist Jonathan Lethem writes, “Percival Everett is an audacious, beguiling American master, whose wild trajectory has reached astonishing heights in the past decade…Everett is simply playing this game at a higher level, and it is the most serious game imaginable.”

Participants do NOT have to have read James in order to take this course. As writer and professor Kiese Laymon succinctly states, “Percival Everett is a genre,” and we can start anywhere.

This course will consist of discussions between the Study Leader and participants.

“Percival Everett, author, at the 2024 National Book Awards finalist reading 5” by Phibeatrice is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.