On March 1 the Welles-Brown room was dimly lit as usual and filled with a range of the UR community – from professors to graduate students to undergraduate students – as the Plutzik Reading Series featured Percival Everett. Everett is a very accomplished novelist who also has written short stories, children’s books and poetry.
His introduction was given by a professor who provided a lengthy interpretation of Everett’s career and work to which Everett replied, “I’m not nearly as smart as that sounded.” He has many literary awards and he is currently a Professor of English at the University of Southern California. He is also a musician, a painter, a fly fisher and, at one point in his life, he even trained mules.
His novels are often times satirical such as, “A History of the African-American people (proposed) by Strom Thurmond, as told to Percival Everett and James Kincaid.” Like this one, he writes about social situations. His novels contain cutting social commentary that is brought out by the deep-seeded cynicism of the characters along with their wit and honesty. He also embarks on exploring stereotypes and the truths behind them – that no one wants to admit – through his character’s lives and situations. Even when his characters are found in a completely satirical realm, seemingly made up as a joke, they provide readers with smart and funny ways of seeing the world around them and exposing what is good about it and what is not, without imposing on the readers beliefs. It is this approach to the modern world that makes Everett a must read for the 21st century.
In his soft spoken voice he began to read from his newest book that has not yet been released entitled, “The Water Shore.” He introduced the main character and narrator of the book as a romance novelist. Then he confessed that the novel had no particular avenue. Not having a particular avenue seems to be a strength for Everett because the passages he read were brilliant. While it was noticeable that they were not in a certain order, it was gripping and easy to follow.
Everett is very interested in language and how ideology explains itself in the language of the individual because everybody’s language is unique and worth examining. The language of the main character in “The Water Shore” is exactly what one would think a romance novelist to sound like. It reminded me of what I thought William Wordsworth Longfellow would sound like, as the character finds emotion and imagery in every event that happens to him. His language was eloquent and filled with words that encouraged me to read a dictionary. It read like a confession and was filled with self-examining questions that lead to, “Nothing is really simple, is it?” and “I realized that we lived in a country of stupid f***s? who elected a stupid f*** king.” The latter is just an example of his cutting edge wit directed towards current society.
Everett is a soft spoken and humble man, very different than his pretentious romance novelist character. He was impressed by the intelligent questions that were presented to him by the crowd and was eager to answer them.
Afterwards, I bought one of his books, “God’s Country,” and asked him to autograph it. I asked him who his influences were as a kid and he said “Mark Twain and Bullwinkle,” which we both laughed about. Then he wished me luck with my life after college. I believe that he meant it.
Conrad is a member of the class of 2007.
