More Than a Satire: American Fiction is a Poignant Reflection on Existence

Of all the great premises™ boasted by this year’s slate of movies, the wonderful American Fiction has one of the very best. The film is about a veteran writer of literary fiction who, as a Black man, finds himself undesirable in the literary market for his lack of conforming to type. The (white-controlled) conglomerate that is the publishing industry plus the impressionable American readership wants to uplift Black voices and experiences, meaning that what they really want is stereotypical “Black” stories to champion.

Our protagonist, Thelonious Ellison, or “Monk” (Jeffrey Wright), a writer and professor who hails from an upper-class New England family and writes Ancient Greek-inspired literary fiction, isn’t of interest to the zeitgeist because his books aren’t “Black,” meaning that they aren’t full of stock characters, settings, and themes. Monk is flabbergasted when he encounters the type of “Black book” that people do seem to want, a bestselling Push-style tome of class suffering and ebonic cartoons called We’s Lives In Da Ghetto. That book is written by a person he can’t figure out, a smart and professional young Black woman named Sintara Golden (Issa Rae). Is she gaming the literary world or buying in to its prejudices? Monk doesn’t know.

Based on the 2001 novel Erasure by the great Percival Everett and screenwritten and directed by Cord Jefferson, American Fiction develops into a clever, meaningful film. The promotional materials for American Fiction will have you believe that it’s simply a satire, but it’s not. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a razor-sharp, rip-roaring send-up of the publishing industry, the literary world, and the fake-woke approach to race in liberal America (albeit one that feels a bit passé, perfect for ten years ago more than today), but I also want to say upfront that, like its source text, it is an incredibly moving, even sad story about growing older, about coming to terms with who you are (personally and publicly). It’s a film whose worth isn’t tied only to its successful commentary or keen referentiality, but its understanding that the absurdities of life exist within life, and that life is often sad and lonely and full of regret and feelings of failure.

Like its source text, American Fiction is kaleidoscopic in its insights and interrogations about life and identity.

Monk learns that his new book isn’t going to sell from his agent, Arthur (John Ortiz), right around the time he loses his teaching job and finds himself returning home to see his sister Lisa (Tracee Ellis Ross) and mother Agnes (Leslie Uggams). Lisa, a doctor who works at a center for reproductive rights, has been caring for their mother in the beginning stages of dementia. Agnes is going to have to move from their beautiful family home to a care facility. That’s going to cost a lot. All of this seems like too much, already, but then tragedy strikes their family and Monk begins to feel bottomless despair.

So, one night, a bit drunkenly, he writes a fake book. A “Black book,” a wildly ridiculous carnival of stereotypes called My Pafology. “Deadbeat dads, rappers, crack… you said you wanted Black stuff!” he tells his agent. He doesn’t mean to try to sell it. But the thing is, the book sells. It gets a huge publishing contract, a movie deal, awards consideration… the whole kit and caboodle. Shortly, Monk finds himself pretending to be someone else, his own pseudonym, Stagg R. Leigh, a murderous convict on the run. Monk doesn’t even really want to capitalize on or stoke the racial and class myopia of the literary world, but he does anyway, wrestling with feelings of hypocrisy and justification that give way, mostly, to remorse, guilt, and self-loathing.

But, as I’ve said, while American Fiction finds its feet in clever burlesque, it stands tall as a coming-of-(middle)-age domestic drama. Monk is getting older, trying to be there for his family, trying to find a companion (dating a neighbor, Coraline, played by Erika Alexander), watching as those his age or older around him find and learn about themselves (from his brother Cliff, played by Sterling K. Brown, who has just come out as gay, to the family’s longtime housekeeper Lorraine, played by Myra Lucretia Taylor, who is falling in love with a local man). American Fiction represents existence as a cyclical process of alienation from and then rediscovery of the self; Monk is experiencing the former part while nearly everyone around him is experiencing the latter. There’s another part, too, which involves discovering how others see you and want you to be.

All of the performances in American Fiction are excellent, but this is Jeffrey Wright’s movie.

Like its source text, American Fiction is kaleidoscopic in its insights and interrogations about life and identity, especially when these things get further complicated by the beasts capitalism, commercialism, and media. Its myriad themes and curiosities do not burden it so much as enrich it, though I will say that they do give it a challenge in finding a suitable, encapsulating ending.

My Pafology, which is re-titled to Fuck, in Monk’s last-ditch attempt to scare publishers away from actually publishing the thing, isn’t as heavily featured in American Fiction as it is in Everett’s novel, which playfully interweaves My Pafology throughout Monk’s. There are some clever ways that the novel is brought into the film; when Monk writes, he imagines the characters talking before him, as if he is watching a private play. I was sad that this technique was used sparingly; it seemed like a useful way to learn not only about the story Monk is writing, and further flag the theatricality of both his venture and the writing process in general, but also sense any parallels between his farce and his actual feelings. Was I the only viewer who wondered if the bad dad of My Pafology (played by Keith David) was a caricature of Monk’s own complicated feelings about his father, who passed away years before?

All of the performances in American Fiction are excellent, but this is Jeffrey Wright’s movie. Wright is flat-out excellent as the serious, buffeted, bemused Monk—delivering a performance of remarkable emotional depth that miraculously slides into pitch-perfect exaggerated comic stylings. Wright is an actor of remarkable ability, with a packed career that has garnered him critical praise but not the mass fanfare he deserves; hopefully the reception of American Fiction will right this.

American Fiction deserves the accolades it will doubtless receive this season; it is more than a topical parody or a response to recent events, which would have been enough. Rather like Monk’s books which refer to ancient Greek drama, it is a complex, thoughtful project about countless themes of lasting relevance, themes that are just as American as they are human.