Percival Everett - Erasure

Thomas Tomad:Author of five collections of stories. Among them, The Night They Came, A Night in Jail, The Night Has Eyes. His work was praised by the American Association of Incarcerated People Who Write. Also the senior editor of an imprint of St. Martin’s Press, Living Cell Books, specializing in books by lifers. From San Francisco, California.

Jon Paul Sigmarsen:A Minnesota-based writer. Author of three novels and three books of nature writing. Won several awards for his Living with the Muskellunge. Host of a literary talk show aired on PBS in St. Paul called With All This Snow, Why Not Read?

Thelonious Ellison:Author of five books. Widely unread experimental stories and novels. Considered dense and often inaccessible. Best known for his novel The Second Failure. A lonely man, seemingly having shed all his friends. Visits his mother daily though she cannot remember who he is. Cannot talk to his brother because he is a nut. Cannot speak to his sister because she is dead. Too mystified to actually be depressed. Likes to fish and work with wood. Looking for single woman interested in same. Lives in nation’s capital.

We five judges were introduced during a teleconference and the other four were decent and reasonable enough, as people are wont to seem at first meetings, especially over the phone.

Harnet, the chair, sounded as if he were smoking a pipe, not that something was in fact in his mouth, but as if he were tasting his breath. “We have an arduous and taxing task facing us, colleagues,” he said. “They tell me we’ve more like four hundred books coming to us.”

“Oh, good heavens,” Ailene Hoover said. Her voice that of an older woman. “I’m just finishing a book myself.”

Thomas Tomad said, “Surely we’re not expected to read every word of every book. We do have lives. I can’t be cooped up in the house all winter long.”

“I think a lot of the books you’ll be able to dismiss after the first couple of sentences,” Harnet said. “Of course, if one of those books ends up on another judge’s list, you’ll have to go back to it.”

“I’m not reading any of that experimental shit,” Hoover said.

“I’m sure we’ll discover each other’s tastes and show due respect,” Harnet said.

Jon Paul Sigmarsen laughed and said, “I plan to do a lot of my reading while ice fishing.”

“How much ice do you usually catch?” Tomad said.

Tomad and Sigmarsen laughed.

“What’s so funny?” Hoover asked.

“I have a question,” Sigmarsen said. “How does one judge a novel against a collection of stories? I mean, if a novel has a bad chapter, then it’s a flawed novel. But if all the stories in a book are great except one, then it’s still a great book. Do you see what I mean, what I’m getting at?”

“That’s a good question,” Tomad said.

“What question is that?” Hoover asked.

“About stories and novels,” Harnet said.

“Oh, yes, I suppose we’re to read them both,” Hoover said.

“Ellison, you haven’t said anything,” Hoover said. “Ellison?”

“I’m here.”

“What do you think?”

“Nothing yet. I haven’t seen any books. How often are we supposed to meet, on the phone or otherwise?”

“They’ve left that up to us,” Harnet said. “But I have a plan. I suggest we talk in three weeks just to compare preliminary notes.”

“We should meet in a couple of weeks to see if anything great has shown up,” Hoover said. “I hear Riley Tucker has a book coming out. And Pinky Touchon.”

“You know, somebody got a picture of her the other day,” Tomad said.

“Who?” Hoover asked.

“Touchon,” Tomad said. “In was in the Chronicle. It seems Pinky lives here in San Fran and no one even knew.”

“I heard it’s a big book,” Hoover said.

“I heard that as well,” said Sigmarsen.

“In a couple of weeks then?” I said.

What some people would have you believe is that Duchamp demonstrated that art could be made out of anything, that there is nothing special about an objet d’art that makes it what it is, that all that matters is that we are willing to allow it to be art. To say, This is a work of art, is a strange kind of performative utterance, as when the king knights a fellow or the judge pronounces a couple man and wife. But if it turns out that the marriage license was incorrectly filled out, then the declaration is undone and we will say, “I guess you’re not husband and wife after all.” But even as it’s thrown out of the museum, what has been called art, it is still art, discarded art, shunned art, bad art, misunderstood art, oppressed art, shock art, lost art, dead art, art before its time, artless art, but art nonetheless.

I’m reminded of the parrot in the house, which when he hears a knock at the door says, “Who is it?” The man knocking answers, “It’s the plumber.” The door remains closed and so he knocks again. “Who is it?” the parrot asks. “The plumber.” Knock, knock. “Who is it?” “The plumber!” This goes on until the crazed knocker breaks through the door, falls onto the carpet below the parrot’s perch, has a heart attack and expires. The residents of the home return to find the man stretched out on their floor. “Who is it?” the wife asks. The parrot says, “The plumber.”

The question is of course, does the parrot answer the woman’s query? And of course he does and he doesn’t. He’s a parrot.

Rauschenberg: Here’s a piece of paper, Willem. Now draw me a picture. I don’t care what it is a picture of or how good it is.de Kooning: Why?Rauschenberg: I intend to erase it.de Kooning: Why?Rauscbenberg: Never mind that. I’ll fix your roof in exchange for the picture.de Kooning: Okay. I believe I’ll use pencil, ink and grease pencil.Rauschenberg: Whatever.

(4 weeks later) Rauschenberg: Well, it took me forty erasers, but I did it.de Kooning: Did what?Rauschenberg: Erased it. The picture you drew for me.de Kooning: You erased my picture?Rauschenberg: Yes.de Kooning: Where is it?Rauschenberg: Your drawing is gone. What remains is my erasing and the paper which was mine to begin with.

(Shows de Kooning the picture) de Kooning: You put your name on it.Rauschenberg: Why not? It’s my work.de Kooning: Your work? Look at what you’ve done to my picture.Rauschenberg: Nice job, eh? It was a lot of work erasing it. My wrist is still sore. I call it “Erased Drawing.”de Kooning: That’s very clever.Rauschenberg: I’ve already sold it for ten grand.de Kooning: You sold my picture?Rauschenberg: No, I erased your picture. I sold my erasing.

The books began to arrive, boxes of them. At first I could not open a single one, but was taken by them as objects. The covers were all so attractive. The jacket copy made each one sound great, blurbs from established literary icons told me why I should like it. The fat books were praised for being fat, the skinny books were praised for being skinny, old writers were great because they were old, young writers were talents because of their youth, every one was startling, ground-breaking, warm, chilling, original, honest and human. I would have found refreshing: Jo Blow’s new novel takes on the mundane and leaves it right where it is. The prose is clear and pedestrian. The moves are tried and true. Yet the book is not so alarmingly dishonest. The characters are as wooden as the ones we meet in real life. This is a torturous journey through the banal. The novel is ordinary but not insipid, pointless but not meaningless, savorless but not stale.Jo Blow is a middle aged writer with a family and no discernible special features. He lives in a house and is about as smart as his last novel.