African American Review

Abstract:

This article examines Percival Everett's collapsing of distinctions between writers and readers, and between reality and storyworlds, in his 2013 novel, Percival Everett by Virgil Russell. Through the depiction of an intimate writing relationship between father and son and through expansive storytelling that grows to encompass Nat Turner and even the author himself, the novel responds to critics who would delimit African American literary works-including Everett's erasure (2001). By refusing to privilege specific time periods or certain forms of African American experience above others, Virgil Russell seeks to open up the boundaries of African American literature.