This was a book club selection. We were searching for a funny/happy book to read. For me this wasn't it. I didn't find the book humorous or engaging. I did finish it but reading it felt more like a chore. I found the story disjointed and non-sensical. The main character was not likable or e...
Not Sidney Poitier, the main narrator in Percival Everett's book, "I Am Not Sidney Poitier" is one of the funniest characters I've read in a long time. After being in the womb for two years, Not Sidney Poitier is born and goes through a tremendous amount of adventure. "I An Not Sidney Poitier" is...
Thus my P.E. obsession loses its vestigial tail and sprouts wings . . .Initially, I wanted to read through a few reviews to see how anyone really had the ballsgumptioncojonesintestinal fortitudeaudacityinsipidnessignoranceloveto write a review. My favorite artist is Basquiat. "Is" because althou...
Splendido, splendente, luce pura, come un diamante.La seconda magnifica lettura dell’anno. Dritto nella mente e nel cuore.La scrittura di Everett ha la musica di un torrente di acqua limpida che scorre fra i sassi levigati dalla corrente. E come staresti seduta accanto a questa acqua per un tempo...
Praise for Glyph: Carol Muske-Dukes"Glyph is an answer-- and an antidote-- to not only what ails the Academy, but what ails a society without the self-knowledge to satirize itself. Percival Everett's infant genius protagonist vaults out of the playpen like Voltaire in flaming diapers-- to dispatc...
Craig Suder, third baseman for the Seattle Mariners, is in a terrible slump. He's batting below .200 at the plate, and even worse in bed with his wife; and he secretly fears he's inherited his mother's insanity. Ordered to take a midseason rest, Suder instead takes his record of Charlie Parker's ...
short stories
These stories by Percival Everett, teacher at the University of Kentucky and author of Suder, Walk Me to the Distance and Cutting Lisa, are unified by spare dialogue, tight plot development andout.
Bickers’s funeral was a quiet affair. Ogden looked at Jenny Bickers, at his mother, at ice-block Fonda, and at young Emilio who stood several yards away, sweating in the winter air, leaning against the body of a small tractor a shovel handle resting against his chest. There were no other faces. ...
Lewis looked at his watch. It had been only three minutes since his last glance. It was five-thirty-seven. If Maggie had left Albuquerque as late as one-thirty, she was still overdue. He considered that she might have stopped to shop, though it seemed unlikely. Perhaps there had been yet another ...
I couldn’t even find an escape in a nap on the relatively short flight because of the constant washroom trips of the woman in the window seat. About the fourth of five times she offered an apology in the form of a quick explanation by whispering, “UTI.” I didn’t know what she meant, but it sounde...
Lucien Bradley pushed his toe into the path of one of the large beetles and watched it stand on its head. He glanced up at the shriek of a chat-little and noticed the pink in the sky. Although it didn’t show promise of rain, he walked up to the high ground near his truck to settle in for the nigh...
A woman with a shrill voice barked at me, Are you the trainer? I’m a trainer, I said. I got this horse. Yes? He’s nasty. Nobody can ride him. He hurt my husband. Yes? &nbs...
You commented last Tuesday on my tie (bow, new) and red hair (not so much red as auburn, like the school). But to get to the point, you know that you hold a peculiar place in history. You must know that, for all your modesty, and know too that I mean nothing special by peculiar. That place in his...
They shared a modest house where the older had lived with a wife. Bill did not miss his wife. She had planted a garden in the backyard. Dan, the younger brother, took over the garden when he moved in. A mole lived in the garden, digging and disturbing. Dan hated what the mole did. He became obses...