62 pages • 2 hours read
Percival EverettErasure
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2001A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 15-18Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 15 Summary
Content Warning: This section of the guide discusses racism, suicide, and anti-Black biases.
Monk realizes that he is to blame for his fight with Marilyn. He resents what he has become and states that he is “unsuitable” for relationships.
Later, he speaks with Yul, who thinks he is crazy for wanting to change the book’s title to Fuck. Monk insists. The editors eventually accept.
Monk passes his time taking long walks and trying to write a new novel that would redeem him from the stain of My Pafology, which is now called Fuck. He also continues visiting his mother at the nursing home and is sad about her worsening memory loss.
One day, he receives a call from the director of the National Book Foundation, asking Monk to be a judge for the year’s Book Award in fiction. Monk accepts feeling eager to express his views on American literature. He has a virtual meeting with his four colleagues, and they agree to talk later about their initial thoughts on the novels. Monk receives several books that are candidates for the award, and he is eager to read them.
Then, his on-again, off-again lover Linda Mallory calls him and invites him to her home. Monk decides to go, and they have sex; however, he later regrets his decision.
Chapter 16 Summary
Monk is reading the books for the award and finds some of them too dense; he finds that, often, their titles are more carefully crafted than their storytelling. Still, he likes several of the novels. His agent informs him that his novel will be published sooner than anticipated. Soon, Monk receives an envelope with his own novel since it, too, is under consideration for the National Book Award.
Monk feels that he is now Stagg R. Leigh, too. However, he chooses to ignore his concerns since he thinks his book doesn’t stand a chance of winning the award. Despite his deepening hatred for the novel and himself, he accepts the money for it.
He has another virtual meeting with the judges of the book award, and this time, they discuss Fuck. Monk feels disgusted that they all agree that the book is great and “the strongest African American novel […] in a long time” (238).
Monk visits New York for a talk show; he will go on as Stagg R. Leigh. While he is in the city, he decides to visit Fiona’s sister’s apartment. Her son opens the door, and Monk discovers that he is a Neo-Nazi. Monk offers to give the man money to tell him where Gretchen lives. Seeing that Monk is his cousin, the man says he always knew he was part Black. The man then takes Monk to Gretchen’s apartment. Monk realizes from her rundown apartment that she is not living well. Gretchen is taking care of her grandson, and she accepts that Monk is her brother with indifference. He tells her that he recently learned about her. He says that his father wanted her to have part of his money and decides to give her a check for $100,000. Then, he leaves.
Chapter 17 Summary
Monk is troubled by his newfound family. Later, he disguises himself as Stagg R. Leigh to appear in the talk show. At the studio, he refuses makeup. Yul is there, too, and Monk feels lost and lonely. He tells Yul that maybe all this is not only about money. During the interview, Monk does not respond to the presenter’s questions. The woman reads an excerpt from the novel and emphasizes how authentic it is. The audience applauds.
Chapter 18 Summary
Monk returns to Washington feeling desperate and suicidal. The judges of the book award reaffirm their love for Stagg R. Leigh’s novel. The book makes it to their final list for the award. As a result, Monk is troubled by nightmares. Bill has stopped all communication and Monk cannot reach him on the phone. Once, when Monk visits his mother at the nursing home, she tells him that people are “vain creatures.” She also says that his father loved her but that he made her feel “small” many times. She says that her promise to herself was to never get old and Monk says he promised to never “compromise [his] art” (257).
Monk feels he is losing himself. He notes that he managed to “take [himself], the writer, reconfigure [himself], then disintegrate himself” (257). Monk wants to kill Stagg R. Leigh, thinking of him as a separate person; but he then realizes it is him, and he wonders how to save his own identity. He is still struggling to write a novel that would redeem himself in his own view. Meanwhile, Fuck has become a New York Times bestseller. Monk reads a review of the novel that characterizes it as a “real thing,” honest and objective about life in the “ghetto.”
Monk returns to New York for the National Book Award ceremony. He has lunch with the other judges, and they deem Fuck the superior novel in the competition. Monk responds saying that it is racist, offensive, and not art. Eventually, they vote for the novel to receive the award. Monk refrains from voting. The judges wonder why he does not like seeing stories of his people. Monk feels angry and knows that he will be exposed during the ceremony.
At the ceremony, the director announces the winner and Monk rises and heads to the front. As he approaches the stage to claim the award, he sees faces and moments from his past—including the face of Stagg R. Leigh—telling him that he is now free of illusions. He reaches the stage and looks at the audience, but he instead feels that he is speaking to his mother. He looks into one of the TV cameras and says, “Egads, I’m on television” (265).
Chapters 15-18 Analysis
The theme of The Complex Relationship Between Language, Identity, and Art reemerges in these final chapters as Monk feels that he betrayed his values and compromised his art by writing Fuck. His Stagg R. Leigh persona and his decision to change the novel’s title to a swear word show that this entire situation has become a farce for him—it is a way to challenge social hypocrisy. However, despite all his attempts to satirize stereotypes through his novel and his persona as Leigh, the novel takes on a life of its own and goes on to become a nominee for the National Book Award. Similarly, Monk’s persona of Stagg R. Leigh, too, becomes a runaway success. Monk is self-critical as he acknowledges the irony of having created Stagg R. Leigh himself—an identity that becomes the source of his despair. Monk thinks: “I had not only made him, but I had made him well enough that he created a work of so-called art” (258). He does not know how he can redeem himself as an artist; his satirical novel provokes an identity crisis.
As Monk is struggling with his identity as an artist, he also confronts his inability to maintain relationships because he cannot communicate with people. This is ironic, given his ease with language as a writer, and it reflects his previous ruminations on the inefficacy of language. Monk spends time with his mother at the nursing home, but her deteriorating condition precludes any real communication between them. Monk’s relationship with Marilyn falls apart, too, because his “literary outrage” dominates their final conversation and Marilyn essentially throws him out of her house; because of this scene, Monk concludes that he is unable to form intimate relationships. Likewise, Bill ceases all communication with him, and Monk’s discovery of his father’s affair makes him reconsider whether he knew his father at all.
Erasure continues the theme of Satirizing African American Stereotypes in Literature as Monk is invited to be a judge for the National Book Award and Fuck is nominated for the award. Monk’s discussions with his fellow judges demonstrate that he is still at odds with the literary community because they characterize Fuck as “the strongest African American novel” they have read lately (238). When his fellow judges vote for Fuck to receive the award, Monk is devastated. He feels absorbed by a racist culture that nurtures itself through stereotypes and commodifies social problems. However, Monk feels complicit in this problem and in the loss of his artistic self. He thinks: “I had managed to take myself, the writer, reconfigure myself, then disintegrate myself, leaving two bodies of work, two bodies, no boundaries yet walls everywhere” (257). He becomes so distressed by his role in promoting stereotypes when he intended to satirize them that he begins to contemplate suicide.
However, the boundaries between Stagg R. Leigh and Monk slowly begin to disappear. Monk starts to conflate himself with Leigh and slips “into a condition of dual personalities” that reflects the dismantling impact of popular culture on the self (237). Monk appears as Stagg R. Leigh on a talk show and his performative act in front of an audience that views his novel as “real” and authentic emphasize the theme of Racism in the Publishing Industry and Popular Culture. The persona of Stagg R. Leigh reminds Monk that artistic expression is defined by society and compromised by a dominant culture that controls narratives.
As Monk continues with his farce, he becomes increasingly desperate and lost. In contrast to his emotional state, his novel not only wins the award but also becomes a bestseller that gets rave reviews from critics and readers. At the literary award ceremony, Monk prepares to confront himself and his cultural environment to reclaim his identity. When the winner is announced, Monk heads to the podium to claim the award. This scene becomes a reflection of the concluding scene of his satirical novel, when Van stares into a television camera, pleased that he is famous; Monk, too, has a similar reaction as he looks into a TV camera that focuses on him. This shows that he, too, is just another victim of racial stereotypes. In this final scene, the themes of Satirizing African American Stereotypes in Literature and Racism in the Publishing Industry and Popular Culture intertwine. Monk understands that not just Stagg R. Leigh but even the persona of Monk is just another racial stereotype since he has always sought success and affirmation from inherently racist institutions.
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