Percival Everett by Virgil Russell

How to review Percival Everett by Virgil Russell? It’s a novel that confounds. On the face of it, it’s a conversation between an aging father and his son. Or perhaps it’s an aging father saying the things he wished he’d said to his now-dead son. Or perhaps, as claimed by the father, it’s a novel written by him in the style he thinks his son would use if his son was a writer. Or maybe it’s the son imagining a conversation with his now dead father.

It’s a book about loss, regret, grief and letting go. It is dedicated to Percival Everett’s father, also Percival Everett, who died three years before its publication. It questions reality and examines writing as an act of creation, taking ideas and spinning them into something more, something that allows both author and reader to change, to also become more. Or less, depending on the context.

The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad follows the fortunes of Cora, a slave born on a cotton plantation in Georgia. Colson Whitehead constructs a framework for his novel that is grounded in history, but is more allegorical than factual, a sort of Pilgrim’s Progress through the worst of American history mixed with the satire of Gulliver’s Travels.

My historian brain battled with this, struggling to place the narrative in a fixed time period, questioning the veracity of the experiences Cora has, confused by seeming representations of American history that sources I checked couldn’t verify. There are anachronisms and a prefiguring of certain post-slavery methods of controlling black lives in among the events that have their roots in fact.

Get ‘Em Young, Treat ‘Em Tough, Tell ‘Em Nothing

Get ‘Em Young, Treat ‘Em Tough, Tell ‘Em Nothing is a collection of short stories by Robin McLean, an American author who is new to me. This collection is one of my And Other Stories subscription books from last year.

The stories are snapshots of contemporary American life, taking in the confusion of beliefs and opinions, the complexities of American society, and the day-to-day and personal experiences that define what it is to be a 21st century American.

Its characters seek a path through, towards living the best life they can manage. There are hard choices and compromises, from relationships and child-rearing to healthcare and national security. There are also windows onto how others see Americans whenever a character ventures abroad, whether as tourist or military presence.

Babbitt

Sinclair Lewis’s Babbitt is a classic of American literature. Set in the early 1920s, it follows the titular George Babbitt, realtor, Presbyterian, civic booster and Republican, through his middle class life in his suburban home. The novel is a satire on the American Dream before the phrase was coined.

The Smell of Other People’s Houses

Bonnie-Sue Hitchcock’s first novel is a snapshot of life in Fairbanks, Alaska in 1970. Told by a small group of teenagers, we see the world through their eyes; the smallness of the town, the strangeness of the adults around them, and the ways they find to survive the transition from childhood to adulthood.

Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street

Bartleby the Scrivener is a classic short story by Herman Melville concerning an unnamed lawyer and his team of scriveners, or clerks, plus an office boy. His two existing clerks, Turkey and Nippers, are chalk and cheese, switching temperaments halfway through the day so that there is always one irascible man in the office, while the office boy, Ginger Nut, is the son of a man who wants a better life for his boy. When the narrator advertises for a third scrivener to help with an increase in work, he brings into this setup the inscrutable Bartleby.

I Am Not Sidney Poitier

I Am Not Sidney Poitier follows a man called Not Sidney Poitier from his hysterical birth to his unlikely and unofficial adoption by Ted Turner and beyond. It’s a wry novel that made me think of Paul Auster, Charles Bukowski, John Kennedy Toole and Kurt Vonnegut all at once and not at all.

THEM: Adventures with Extremists

Jon Ronson started to write profiles of people portrayed as extremists in the media in 1995. His book THEM: Adventures With Extremists was published in 2001, in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks on the USA. We are 28 years on from when Jon started his research and 21 on from where the concerns felt in the years following the Iraq Wars led us. I started to read this collection wondering what might have changed in the last two or three decades.

Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism

Mission Economy: A Moonshot Guide to Changing Capitalism is an examination of why capitalism in its current form works for the few, not the many and how it might be possible to change that around.

As mentioned in my review of The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, I recently listened to Mariana Mazzucato talk about her book on the Adam Buxton podcast. I was captivated by her intelligence and articulate expression of her economic theory and reserved the book at the library. It was a good decision.

Quick Reviews of Comic Books

I spent some time catching up on comic books from my To Read pile recently. I read Tales of Woodsman Pete with Full Particulars by Lilli Carré, and Hunter & Painter and Baking with Kafka, both by Tom Gauld. I bought the first two in a small bookshop in Bristol a good few years ago. The second is a book plate limited edition that I bought from Gosh! Comics.