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'American Fiction' Confronts an American Truth in Publishing

By Sara Clements | Film | December 20, 2023 |

By Sara Clements | Film | December 20, 2023 |


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Before writing and directing his feature film debut,American Fiction, Cord Jefferson worked in journalism. During that time, he wrote an article titled “The Racism Beat,” in which he explains the expectation of Black journalists to write about the bad things that happen to Black people. Now, he shifts that focus to Black art in America and the expectations imposed on Black artists, in particular, writers.

Based on the novel Erasure by Percival Everett, American Fiction (now out in limited release) points its satirical lens at the publishing industry’s pigeonholing of Black writers. The film’s protagonist, Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (Jeffrey Wright), is a down-on-his-luck writer whose latest work is being met with rejection after rejection. The reason? Publishers want a “Black book.” Monk questions how a book by a Black man isn’t enough, but the response goes back to what Jefferson himself touched on about being Black in journalism. “There’s an inability to think of us as having our own passions and our own complex existence outside of this very limited window of what they allow us to say about our lives,” Jefferson explains in an interview with The New York Times. Publishers and readers don’t want a novel about the Black experience using Aeschylus’s The Persians, like what Monk is trying to sell. Unless the stories involve slavery, violence, or poverty, publishers, and even Hollywood studios, aren’t interested.

American Fiction is about the complex existence that Jefferson speaks of, while also confronting our culture’s obsession with reducing people to stereotypes. The film follows both the professional and personal life of Monk. Along with being a writer, he is a professor of literature of the American South. This literature is full of archaic thoughts and coarse language that often make his students uncomfortable. They’re not modern works, but they might as well be, as modern African-American literature seems stuck in the past.

As a writer, Monk is intelligent and wants to craft a work with something to chew on. His work is often placed under African-American studies when it’s not about that at all. If he does choose to write about the Black experience in America, it has to be something that doesn’t “flatten” Black people’s lives, as he puts it. He’s frustrated to be up against best-selling authors like Sintara Golden (Issa Rae), whose book, “We’s Lives in Da Ghetto,” is a work of urban fiction that fits all the stereotypes of impoverished Black life in the streets. White readers may call it gutsy and necessary, but Monk views that kind of novel as meaningless trash to satisfy the tastes of guilt-ridden white people. Sintara admits to not seeing an issue with giving people what they want, speaking to the commercialization of the publishing industry.

Everett’s novel, as well as Jeffferson’s adaptation, touches on the complex existences that Black people live that are outside the scope of what the industry, publishing or film, want to convey. And if white people were willing to explore them, they would find plenty of relatability. When Monk reunites with his family in Boston during the first half of the film, it’s under unhappy circumstances: His mother, Agnes (Leslie Uggams), is showing early signs of Alzheimer’s. The emotional toll this takes on Monk is palpable, especially when you know the inevitable. If it weren’t for his mother’s caregiver, Lorraine (Myra Lucretia Taylor), Monk would be going through this alone. His brother, Cliff (Sterling K. Brown), is going through his own issues. Cliff is a source of frustration for Monk as he’s often absent in the comfort of drink and drugs. However, he’s also a gay man starting his journey late in life after losing everything during a messy divorce. Amid all this, a new relationship blossoms between Monk and Coraline (Erika Alexander), a lawyer who lives across the street. Love, grief, addiction. Human experiences. These characters are fully dimensional and the family drama at this story’s center emphasizes similar struggles that many go through regardless of race. These are the kind of stories Monk wants to tell but no one wants to hear.

At a couple of points in the film, you see Monk with the TV on as scenes featuring drugs, violence, poverty, and slavery flash onto the screen. Through Wright’s performance, you see the frustration rising. As he puts his head in his hands, bangs his head on his desk, or looks in disbelief (Wright’s facial expression in this scene is gold) as a group rises in applause at a book reading of “We’s Lives in Da Ghetto,” you can tell he’s had enough. So, as a joke, he writes a parody of urban fiction under a pseudonym titled “My Pafology.” The book has everything: thugs, drugs, and guns. It’s full of the stereotypes of African-American life that Monk hates. Naturally, his book sells for six figures, and despite knowing the book is trash, Monk desperately needs money for his mother’s care. The instant success of “My Pafology” skyrockets out of control and risks creating complications in both his personal and professional lives as the consequences of turning art into a commodity come to light.

American Fiction is a richly layered satire that successfully tackles the commercialization of literature and the state of the publishing industry. It’s one of the funniest films of the year, not only due to Jefferson’s deft script but because of the cast. Monk and his family may have their ups and downs, but each interpersonal relationship presents laughs along the way that make you feel right at home with them. Wright and Brown’s characters may be total opposites but they have experienced a lot together and that brings out emotional moments, too. Wright truly steals the show, however, in his moments where he has to present himself as the pseudonymous author of his novel. It’s hilarious to see him transform into a stereotype, which plays into how ridiculous it is that white people have created their own idea of the Black experience.

The film’s ending flubs a little in its flip-floppy execution but makes the point that breaking the cycle of giving in to market forces is difficult to break. The contrast between Monk’s real life and his parody novel shows that Black life in America is very complex and varied, crossing many socio-economic realities. White people say they want to listen to Black voices but don’t when they’re actually in the room. Representation to many institutions is just something you cross off like food on a grocery list. As Monk’s editor says, “White people think they want the truth but they don’t. They just want to feel absolved,” and American Fiction hammers that message home.