A Percival Everett Starter List

A Percival Everett Starter List

This article relates to Erasure

Percival Everett's 2001 novel Erasure was adapted for film as American Fiction in 2023, leading to director Cord Jefferson's Oscar win for Best Adapted Screenplay. The year after, Everett's new novel James scooped up major awards, including the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize. While these exposures and honors gained him some long overdue stature in the world of mainstream literature, Everett had already built a decades-long career with his inventive, often satirical, and frequently acclaimed literary novels. He may be more adept than any other contemporary writer at marrying low-brow tropes with high-brow concepts—or rather, making these categories lose all meaning. Despite some distinctive elements to his writing style, the ground he has covered as an author is vast. Below are a few of his novels besides Erasure that may be enticing to those just discovering his fiction, though these still represent only a small portion of his overall body of work.

James (2024)

James reimagines Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the enslaved character Jim. Everett's take on the classic mixes sharp action sequences with entertaining explorations of language and the concept of freedom. Its relatively straightforward story (particularly compared to some of his previous work) offers appeal for book clubs and those who enjoy meaningful historical fiction.

Dr. No (2022)

If James isn't weird enough for you, try Everett's take on James Bond. This clever and absurdist caper features mathematician Wala Kitu and his beautiful colleague Eigen Vector, self-identified Bond villain John Milton Bradley Sill, and elements of real history revolving around the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Trees (2021)

The Trees addresses the history of lynching in America both with and without doses of heavy humor, using a variety of narrative forms and storytelling traditions, including zombie fiction. Devastating, profound, and absolutely outrageous, this novel challenges the reader to make meaning of its clues, testing the limits of reading and literature, and creates surprising possibilities for interacting with the past.

Telephone (2020)

The format of Telephone is a telling example of the playfulness Everett brings to his work: three versions of the book exist, each with various differing details and a different ending. The story focuses on a geologist dealing with the tragedy of his daughter's deteriorating health, and explores aspects of narrative, grief, loss, and fate.

So Much Blue (2017)

This may be the closest thing Everett has written to "normal" contemporary literary fiction, and would make a great follow-up read for book clubs who enjoyed James but aren't necessarily hoping for more of the same. It deftly juggles three timelines in the life of artist Kevin Pace, introducing plot points related to an extramarital affair, war in El Salvador, and a secret painting.

Assumption (2011)

Assumption is the kind of book that inspires strong opinions. Technically a group of three novellas, it includes the throughline of a murder mystery featuring Ogden Walker, deputy sheriff of a town in New Mexico. Those with specific ideas about how mysteries should be structured should probably pass, but readers who welcome the unexpected may find themselves fascinated.

Filed under Reading Lists

This article relates to Erasure. It first ran in the July 16, 2025 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.