Last night I finished reading Erasure by Percival Everett and it was one of the best books I have read in quite a while.

As someone who aspires to be a writer, I am alway puzzled by what about a story makes it a worthy read. In the case of Erasure I found several intersections with the book. First I was challenged by Theolonius Ellison and his explorations of story telling. In one portion of the book he reads from his writing, “Placing the Experimental Novel” and I haven’t been that challenged as a reader since University of Minnesota professor Tim Lensmire gave us a Russian author who wrote about “intersections” with the text. That sent me for a loop and so did Ellison’s thoughts on the experimental novel.

Interesting that the main character is named, “Ellison” – the surname of Ralph Ellison, author of Invisible Man who wrote about a black man who felt invisible in society. (Ed. note: I read Invisible Man when I was nineteen, almost fifty years ago so my understanding of that text should be framed in that context.) Theolonius Ellison is a writer, a serious writer who is struggling to find an intersection between his story telling and commercial success.

Walking out on thin ice one step further, “Theolonius” brings to mind Theolonius Monk, especially when we learn that Ellison’s nickname is “Monksie”. Thelonolius Monk was a genius of jazz and piano composition, but also a thorny person, especially later in his life. While the main character in Erasure is not a difficult person, he does struggle to have relationships with his family, other authors, or to develop friendships.

As I circle around what I liked about this story I am thinking that it centers around the irony of the story. Ellison’s professional success comes at a cost to his own self-esteem and sense of self worth.

Other intersections with the text were the paragraphs about fly fishing and woodworking, both of which enriched the story for me.