“[A]n outrageously funny satire of race relations and racism, US 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

“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.”
—Clarence Major, author of Configurations

“[T]he tale hilariously satirizes the paternalistic racism of the old Dixie, simultaneously offering an indictment of big publishing’s quest for the bestseller.”
—Chicago Reader

“We can only hope that fine literary excursions such as this Everett and Kincaid novel will help demolish all ghettos, real and symbolic.”
—Chicago Tribune

“A History of the African-American People . . . is billed as a novel, but a moment’s inspection is all you need to see that it is really a full-out spoof.”
—New York Times Book Review

“[F]or all of the welcome comic roller-coaster turns and plunges of the book, there’s a lot of meat here for anybody looking for it, questions not only about how publishing works, or doesn’t, but about the allegiances of a writer and how one handles those sticky notions of truth and history.”
—San Francisco Chronicle

“This novel is a fun-house in which the crazy mirrors reveal the truth. Cultural vertigo was never so much fun.”
—Providence Sunday Journal

“Undoubtedly one of the most intriguing titles on this month’s list, coauthors Percival Everett and James Kincaid offer up a fictitious satire about the late South Carolina Republican Senator Strom Thurmond’s desire to write an account of the history of Black people in America.”
—Africana

“[T]he funniest book of the last decade.”
—Urban Dialect

“Under the impression that he has done more than any living political figure to shape the lives of African Americans, Senator Strom Thurmond announces his plan to write their history. In a smart and sidesplitting satire, Everett and Kincaid chronicle the history of Thurmond’s History.”
—Review of Contemporary Fiction

“A History reads like an R-rated screwball comedy . . . It is at turns bizarre, then provocative and funny.”
—Altar Magazine

“Like the National Lampoon writers of old, Everett and Kincaid seem mostly focused on nonsense and sex jokes and anti-authority whines, but they are smart when they want to be and, most important, they are funny.”
—Seattle Times