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Half an Inch of Water by Percival Everett
African-American literature is marginal in two ways. First, it’s a genre outside what is considered the mainstream of literature. It’s shelved separately, and has that qualifier, “African-American”,...
View ArticleInexplicable, and Sometimes Ineffable
All of Everett’s work is, to a greater or lesser degree, satirical; much of it throbs with rage.Percival Everett’s new short story collection, Half an Inch of Water, is out, and Justin Taylor wants you...
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The Saturday Rumpus Interview: Darryl Pinckney
A few pages into Darryl Pinckney’s latest novel, Black Deutschland, I added him to my bucket list of brilliant writers I wanted to have a conversation with. Throughout my teen years, James Baldwin was...
View ArticleIt Was a Joke
In an essay on author authenticity for The Millions, Alcy Levy examines Percival Everett’s satirical novel Erasure—about a black author whose own satirical novel is taken seriously—in light of recent...
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The Rumpus Interview with Emily Raboteau
The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race is a collection of essays and poetry that takes its name from James Baldwin’s classic, The Fire Next Time. Jesmyn Ward, the collection’s editor...
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What to Read When You Want to Celebrate Black History
It’s Black History Month, and while The Rumpus celebrates writing by black artists year-round, we thought it was especially important to share a list of work written exclusively by black writers this...
View ArticleNotable Los Angeles: 2/18–2/24
Monday 2/18: Adam Higginbotham discusses and signs Midnight in Chernobyl: The Untold Story of the World’s Greatest Nuclear Disaster. 7 p.m. at Vroman’s Bookstore. Tuesday 2/19: Writer Ted Fox and...
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When the Sh*t Hits the Fan: A Conversation with Percival Everett
During finals week, right before the semester was over, I was given the opportunity to talk to Percival Everett about his new book, The Book of Training by Colonel Hap Thompson of Roanoke, VA, 1843:...
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This Thing of Existence: Talking with Rion Amilcar Scott
I keep googling Cross River, Maryland, to see if it is real. Of course, it’s not; it’s the city Rion Amilcar Scott created to tell the stories in his two excellent short story collections,...
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The Rumpus Book Club Chat with Tracy O’Neill
The Rumpus Book Club chats with Tracy O’Neill about her new novel, Quotients (Soho Press, May 2020), the extensive research she did while writing, how the book’s design came to be, using syntax as a...
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