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A History of the African-American People (proposed) by Strom Thurmond, as told to Percival Everett & James Kincaid (A novel)
Fiction/African-American Literature | Trade Paperback
A selection of Akashic's Urban Surreal Series. Veteran authors Everett and Kincaid present an uproarious send-up of one of America's most controversial American icons A History . . . was selected for the 2004 Gustavas Myers Outstanding Book Awards Honorable Mention List! Click here to see author photos & read an exclusive interview with Percival Everett & James Kincaid. Click here to read an excerpt of the book. Click here for details on Spring 2004 readings & book signings "This is the funniest novel I've read in years! I had trouble reading it because I had to stop to laugh out loud so often. Among many other things, it's a treasure of satiric humor. Don't pass it up! "[A]n outrageously funny satire of race relations and racism, U.S. history, contemporary sexual mores and behavior, academia, and the publishing industry . . . It could become a cult-classic . . . Highly recommended." --Library Journal "The story's epistolary format allows novelist Everett and literary theorist Kincaid to write in a chorus of richly individuated voices, by turns--and often simultaneously--sardonic, hysterical, obsequious and threatening, aware of their own hypocrisies but unwilling to renounce them. The result is a truly funny sendup of the corrupt politics of academe, the publishing industry and politics, as well.as a subtle but biting critique of racial ideology." --Publishers Weekly "Percival Everett has been wrestling the angel for years, in all its incarnations -- literary novel, Western, naturalist story, experimental work, satire -- and in each case he's pinned the angel, made it call uncle. Now he's gone tagteam with James Kincaid, so expect more damage. That Everett is not better known, that he fails to be mentioned alongside the like of Philip Roth, John Updike and Tony Morrison, shames us all." Everett and Kincaid present a fictitious chronicle of South Carolina Senator Strom Thurmond's desire to pen a history of African-Americans--his and his aides' belief being that he has done as much, or more, than any American to shape that history. An epistolary novel, The History follows the letters of loose-cannon Congressional office workers, insane interns at a large New York publishing house, and disturbed publishing executives, along with homicidal rival editors, kindly family friends, and an aspiring author named Septic. Strom Thurmond appears charming and open, mad and sure of his place in American history. Percival Everett is the author of fifteen works of fiction, among them Glyph, Watershed, and Frenzy. His most recent novel, Erasure, won the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and did little to earn him friends. Everett lived in South Carolina from age five to sixteen. In 1989, he was invited to address the South Carolina State Legislature, but during his speech refused to continue because of the presence of the Confederate flag, thus touching off a controversy that ended with the flag being removed from the Capitol building some years later. James Kincaid is an English professor at the University of Southern California and has written seven books in literary theory and cultural studies. These books and Kincaid himself have gradually lost their moorings in the academic world, so there was nothing left for him to do but to adopt the guise of fiction writer. Writing about madness comes easy to him. Praise for Percival Everett: "If Percival Everett isn't already a household name, it's because people are more interested in politics than truth."
"Everett's talent is multifaceted, sparked by a satiric brilliance that could place him alongside Richard Wright and Ralph Ellison . . ." --Publishers Weekly "I think Percival Everett is a genius. I've been a fan since his first novel. He continues to amaze me with each novel--as if he likes making 90-degree turns to see what's around the corner, and then over the edge . . . He's a brilliant writer and so damn smart I envy him." --Terry McMillan, author of Mama Praise for James Kincaid: "James Kincaid has an easy familiarity, an often-charming wit, and a cool sense of the absurd." --Washington Times "Mr Kincaid himself deserves the praise he bestows on the French historian Phillippe Aries: he has written 'the rarest kind of history, a history of the present . . . exposing our own constructing aparatus, freeing us, at least a little, from the tyranny of our eccentric seeing.'"
--New York Times Book Review
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