Percival Everett by Virgil Russell

A Novel

By: Percival Everett

Narrated by: André Santana

A story inside a story inside a story. A man visits his aging father in a nursing home, where his father writes the novel he imagines his son would write. Or is it the novel that the son imagines his father would imagine, if he were to imagine the kind of novel the son would write?

Let's simplify: a woman seeks an apprenticeship with a painter, claiming to be his long-lost daughter. A contractor-for-hire named Murphy can't distinguish between the two brothers who employ him. And in Murphy's troubled dreams, Nat Turner imagines the life of William Styron. These narratives twist together with anecdotes from the nursing home, each building on the other until they crest in a wild, outlandish excursion of the inmates led by the father. Anchoring these shifting plotlines is a running commentary between father and son that sheds doubt on the truthfulness of each story. Because, after all, what narrator can we ever trust?

Not only is Percival Everett by Virgil Russell a powerful, compassionate meditation on old age and its humiliations, it is an ingenious culmination of Everett's recurring preoccupations. All of his prior work, his metaphysical and philosophical inquiries, his investigations into the nature of narrative, have led to this masterful book. Percival Everett has never been more cunning, more brilliant, and subversive.

©2013 Percival Everett (P)2024 Tantor

A Classic in Nonsense That Makes Sense

I hated this book when I first heard it because it didn’t make sense nor tell a direct narrative. I was getting ready to ask for my money back until I decided the author may have intended his book to sound like nonsense. I listened to it a second time and the nonsense makes sense in an odd way as characters and storylines merge and divide. The book is like a roller coaster ride in which you do not know what is coming next. My goal became to enjoy the ride and not try to make sense out of it. A character explained, “What’s the joy in saying anything outright.” The book reminded me of the nonsense of Lewis Carroll but with more weight and gravitas. I highly recommend it.