MGM has dropped a trailer for American Fiction, the upcoming film based on Percival Everett’s Erasure.
Everett’s 2001 satirical novel follows Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, a Black literary novelist who resents the success of a blockbuster novel called We’s Lives in Da Ghetto. He writes a parody of the novel under the pen name Stagg R. Leigh, and it also becomes a bestseller. A critic for Kirkus praised the novel as “more genuine and tender than much of Everett’s previous work, but no less impressive intellectually: a high point in an already substantial literary career.”
The film stars Jeffrey Wright as Monk, alongside Tracee Ellis Ross, Issa Rae, and Sterling K. Brown. It’s written and directed by Cord Jefferson; Everett is among the film’s executive producers.
The trailer opens with Rae as Sintara Golden, the author of We’s Lives in Da Ghetto, reading from her novel at a book festival. “Yo, Sharonda, girl, you be pregnant again?” she says. “If I is, Ray Ray’s going to be a real father this time around.” The crowd applauds, and Wright, as Monk, looks on in disbelief.
Later, Monk begins work on My Pafology, his parody of Golden’s novel, telling his agent, “Deadbeat dads, rappers, crack. You said you wanted Black stuff. That’s Black, right?” In another scene, Monk is asked in a phone conversation whether the book is based on his own life. “Yeah, you think some bitch-ass college boy could come up with that shit?” he responds in an affected tough-guy voice.
American Fiction is slated to hit theaters in December.
Michael Schaub is a contributing writer.
