Erasure: from the author of the Booker shortlisted THE TREES

Serious, funny, and highly relevant to us all, in short a masterpiece.This is satire that is so true to reality, more so than ever after the rise of Trump and the lessening of tolerance between political differences. This book reminds us we are all flawed and absurd and it makes you laugh out loud between being appalled and confronted with your own prejudices.Send a copy to all your friends and all your enemies as well.

Percival Everett's Erasure is a brilliantly intelligent, wry and levelheaded indictment of the way race is treated in modern culture, but no less passionate for its calm tone. It is also a very touching story of a man's desperate attempt to connect with his beloved family, even as it collapses around him, with the death of his sister, his mother's encroaching Alzheimer's, and his brother going emotionally off the rails, in what is very amusingly implied to be a spectacular fashion. It is also an interesting literary experiment, flitting between meditations on carpentry, to imagined conversations between the protagonist's artistic heroes, to straightforward narrative, and various pieces composed by writer protagonist Thelonius "Monk" Ellison (an academic paper, an entire novel-within-a-novel and a short story are all repeated in their entirety).The fact that Everett manages attempts to make Erasure all of these things, and then pulls them all off with dazzling aplomb, makes this well worth a read. You won't regret it, and you'll find yourself musing on it months from when you finish it.

Well worth the read - very amusing read as compared with Glyph which was dreadful, this book had a story which you could relate to

All you need to know is that Percival Everett is a superb, top-class writer with a vast range of knowledge and allusions. And he can be very funny. Great characters, great story, and a quote at the end which I welcome as a warning : 'Hypotheses non fingo'.This is taken from Isaac Newton: 'I frame no hypotheses.'Read, enjoy and absorb what this wonderful book teaches by osmosis not analysis or hypotheses.

I am sorry Mr Everett but I did not enjoy your novel. The book within a book, is one of the most gratuitous pieces of offensive literature I have read. The irony is, the fictional author’s interpretation of a trashy novel, is actually the highlight. The dialect could be Martian as far as I am concerned, but at least it is cohesive, coherent, and compelling. The fudge around the outside is just a jumble of popular devices: the dying mother, murdered sister, gay brother and his estranged family, the unknown sibling, and incidental love interest, all seem rather pointless. The literary award is obvious and inevitable. The intellectual digressions into trout, conversation between painters and book ideas are tiring. I admit, I hate it when a novelist is constantly showing you how clever he is, so to have the novelist within the novel showing you how clever he is was never going to win my heart. I read it because I bought it. I am twice a fool.

Everett has been pretty much ignored outside of the US, but he's a verytalented writer who deserves wider recognition. Erasure is probably hisbest book, the tale of a black US academic who writes a scathing pasticheof the sort of psuedo-authentic ghetto-talk black novels that are hugelysucessful these days in America. The book becomes a hit, despite his bestattempts to strangle it, and the resulting misadventures explore thenature of race and art and authenticity. And it's very funny, too.

Erasure is an enjoyable read. Everett writes with a beautiful, concise tone and offers many wry observations about modern America. My problem with the book is that it's essentially two stories. One is a mature, semi-autobiographical look at a black family struggling with age, death and relationships - and the other story is a satire of what white audiences want from black writers: endless cliches of ghetto misery, guns, bloodshed, sex and hip hop. Both stories are good, but I am not sure they sit well next to each other in the same novel.

Other reviewers have said it's two books in one, As far as I can see it is several. The main story is of a humane caring guy, an author, accompanied by samples of his writing. His books are usually pretentious and inaccessible, then he writes a trashy 'black' novel. I was interested in the main character, the pretentious stuff bored me, the trash sickened me.Overall that meant that 50% of this book was boring or appalling. I skipped through the trashy novel after being sickened by the first chapter, leaving a very meager book.The 'Trashy' novel is supposed to be satire about what white people think of blacks. That does us all a disservice. It's ignorant, cliched and revolting. It insults anyone with a brain.His point is that people don't expect blacks to be educated and articulate. I don't agree and I think his thoughts about whites are grossly prejudiced in their own way.