American Desert

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8)American Desert by Percival Everett

It's a strange and goofy sort of novel. It's a sort of academic satire about a suicidal English professor (Everett loves writing funhouse mirror versions of himself) who is decapitated in a car accident and then comes back to life after his head is sewn back on. American society, driven by media frenzies and government conspiracies, does not know how to respond to this mystifying Lazarus, Ted Street.

I enjoyed it, but I did not enjoy it as much as I've enjoyed Everett's other novels. Two of the blurb-writers on the back of the book called his writing here 'savage', but compared to The Water Cure this was tame, and even compared to Erasure the humor lacks bite. In some ways that's a virtue, because this is a black comedy full of a surprising amount of heart and human decency. But I wanted the satire to be a little fiercer, more aggressive.

The final scene is phenomenal, though. A brilliant piece of imagery that I shall not spoil, but almost makes the whole thing worth it.



tags: a: everett percival, african-american, postmodernist