Percival Everett

An uncanny literary thriller addressing the painful legacy of lynching in the US, by the author of Telephone Percival Everett's The Trees is a page-turner that opens with a series of brutal murders in the rural town of Money, Mississippi. When a pair of detectives from the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation arrive, they meet expected resistance from the local sheriff, his deputy, the coroner, and a string of racist White townsfolk. The murders present a puzzle, for at each crime scene there is a second dead body: that of a man who resembles Emmett Till. The detectives suspect that these are killings of retribution, but soon discover that eerily similar murders are taking place all over the country. Something truly strange is afoot. As the bodies pile up, the MBI detectives seek answers from a local root doctor who has been documenting every lynching in the country for years, uncovering a history that refuses to be buried. In this bold, provocative book, Everett takes direct aim at racism and police violence, and does so in a fast-paced style that ensures the reader can't look away. The Trees is an enormously powerful novel of lasting importance from an author with his finger on America's pulse.

#20 in the New York Times '100 Best Books of the 21st Century'Adapted into the Oscar-nominated major motion picture, American Fiction.By the twice Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Trees and James.'Truly brilliant.' Los Angeles Review of Books'A classic.' The Times'A remarkable novel.' Wall Street Journal'Sublime . . . brilliant, uproarious . . . A wise novel about how we live.' Brandon Taylor With your book sales at an all-time low, your family falling apart, and your agent telling you you're not black enough, what's an author to do? Thelonius 'Monk' Ellison has the answer. Or does he . . . ? Winner of the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award for Fiction'One of the most original and forceful novels to have emerged from America in years.' TLS'A furious whirl of a book. It made me howl with laughter . . . and rage, and sorrow, and affinity.' Lisa McInerney'Seminal doesn't even come close. This novel is Everett at his finest, full of trademark protest, humanity and incisive humour, all wrapped up in one hell of a story.' Courttia Newland'Hilarious. . . Everett is a first-rate word wrangler.' Nicholas Lezard, Guardian

An astonishing new novel of loss and grief from "one of our culture's preeminent novelists" (Los Angeles Times) Zach Wells is a perpetually dissatisfied geologist-slash-paleobiologist. Expert in a very narrow area--the geological history of a cave forty-four meters above the Colorado River in the Grand Canyon--he is a laconic man who plays chess with his daughter, trades puns with his wife while she does yoga, and dodges committee work at the college where he teaches. After a field trip to the desert yields nothing more than a colleague with a tenure problem and a student with an unwelcome crush on him, Wells returns home to find his world crumbling. His daughter has lost her edge at chess, she has developed mysterious eye problems, and her memory has lost its grasp. Powerless in the face of his daughter's slow deterioration, he finds a mysterious note asking for help tucked into the pocket of a jacket he's ordered off eBay. Desperate for someone to save, he sets off to New Mexico in secret on a quixotic rescue mission. A deeply affecting story about the lengths to which loss and grief will drive us, Telephone is a Percival Everett novel we should have seen coming all along, one that will shake you to the core as it asks questions about the power of narrative to save.

For the plainspoken men and women of these stories, small events trigger sudden shifts in which the ordinary becomes unfamiliar. Cowboys cavort and sheriffs shoot, certainly, but don't let the familiar trapping of your average Western fool you - these short stories are deeply philosophical meditations of the surreality of human existence.

These poems question the sounds that are meaning. They interrogate where meaning resides and whether they are in any way, rigidly or loosely, wed to the words that carry it. There is a nod toward logic and at once an acceptance of its limits. These poems are landscapes, the meaning altering with the movement of clouds, with the changing light. Irony sometimes is the way we can be earnest.

Not Sidney Poitier is an amiable young man in an absurd country. The sudden death of his mother orphans him at age eleven, leaving him with an unfortunate name, an uncanny resemblance to the famous actor and, perhaps more fortunate, a staggering number of shares in the Turner Broadcasting Corporation. Percival Everett's hilarious new novel follows Not Sidney's tumultuous life, as the social hierarchy scrambles to balance his skin color with his fabulous wealth.

Training horses is dangerous - a head-to-head confrontation with 1,000 pounds of muscle takes courage. It is these same qualities that allow John and his uncle Gus to live in the beautiful high desert of Wyoming. A black horse trainer is a curiosity, at the very least, but the brutal murder of a young gay man pushes this small community to the teetering edge of intolerance. Highly praised for his storytelling and ability to address the toughest issues of our time with a touching originality, Everett offers a brilliant novel that explores a divided America.

Time Out Chicago, Top 10 Book of 2005Winner of the 2006 PEN USA Literary Award for Fiction New paperback edition available Training horses is dangerous--a head-to-head confrontation with 1,000 pounds of muscle and little sense takes courage, but more important, patience and smarts. It is these same qualities that allow John and his uncle Gus to live in the beautiful high desert of Wyoming. A black horse trainer is a curiosity, at the very least, but a familiar curiosity in these parts. It is the brutal murder of a young gay man, however, that pushes this small community to the teetering edge of intolerance. Highly praised for his storytelling and ability to address the toughest issues of our time with humor, grace, and originality, Wounded by Percival Everett offers a brilliant novel that explores the alarming consequences of hatred in a divided America.

Praise for Percival Everett: “. . . Artful and literate, Everett explores the philosophical, the metaphysical, the physical and the psychological boundaries of human life . . .” —Terry D’Auray “. . . Everett achieves a primal sense of dislocation, forcing us to question how we determine the limits of the human . . . ” —Sven Birkets, The New York Times “. . . The audacious, uncategorizable Everett. He mixes genre and tone with absolute abandon, never does the same song twice. Brilliant . . .” —The Boston Globe “. . . An author who dances with language as effortlessly as Fred Astaire.” —Daniel Quinn, author of Ishmael

An exceptional new collection of short stories by Percival Everett, author of the highly praised and wickedly funny novel Erasure. An artist, a cop, a cowboy, several fly fishermen and even a reluctant romance novelist inhabit these revealing and often hilarious stories. An old man ends up in a high-speed chase with the cops after stealing the car that blocks the garbage bin at his apartment building. A stranger gets a job at a sandwich shop and fixes everything in sight: a manual mustard dispenser, a mouthful of crooked teeth, thirty-two parking tickets and a sexual identity problem.

BOKEN SOM TAGIT USA MED STORM OCH SÅLTS I ÖVER 1 MILJON EXEMPLAR! "De två vita pojkarna, Huck och Tom, spanade på mig. Som vanligt befann de sig mitt uppe i en sorts låtsaslek där jag antingen var skurk eller villebråd, men tveklöst deras leksak." När slaven Jim hör att hans ägare tänker sälja honom till någon i New Orleans och separera honom från hans familj bestämmer han sig för att gömma sig på den närliggande ön Jackson Island och tänka ut en lösning. Under tiden har Huck Finn iscensatt sin egen död för att fly från sin våldsamme far som nyligen har kommit tillbaka till staden Hannibal. Där och då startar den farliga resan för Huck Finn och slaven Jim – som i själva verket heter James – längs Mississippifloden i syfte att ta sig till de fria staterna och det som finns bortanför dem. Vem är James? En ung illitterat slav som har rymt från plantagen, eller en bildad man med humor, som i hemlighet driver med de vita? James låtsas ofta att han inte kan något, att han inte förstår någonting. I själva verket behärskar han både språket och tanken som få andra. Med James förvandlar Percival Everett karaktären Jim, skapad av Mark Twain i klassikern Huckleberry Finn, till en oförglömlig hjälte. Denna storslagna äventyrsroman, buren av Mississippis virvlande strömmar, ger ett helt nytt perspektiv på rasismens historia. Men framför allt är James en gripande berättelse om en man som kämpar för rätten att själv välja sitt öde.

Pulitzer- & National Book Award -voittaja! Mississippijoki, 1861. Kun orjuutettu Jim aiotaan myydä uudelle omistajalle, hän ottaa kohtalon omiin käsiinsä. Pakomatkallaan Jim tapaa nuoren Huck Finnin, joka on lavastanut oman kuolemansa kadotakseen väkivaltaisen isänsä ulottumattomiin. Yhdessä kaksikko joutuu vaaralliselle, molempien elämän mullistavalle seikkailulle pitkin Mississippijokea. Vastarannalla siintää epävarma lupaus vapaudesta. Yhdysvaltalaiskirjailija Percival Everettin ensimmäinen suomennos on nerokas, teräviä havaintoja ja huumoria kihisevä uudelleentulkinta klassikkoromaani Huckleberry Finnin seikkailuista. Siinä orjat ovat aktiivisia toimijoita, joiden kielellisen taituruuden kautta ilmenevä herkkä älykkyys vakuuttaa, vaikuttaa ja viihdyttää. Romaani on myynyt yli kaksi miljoonaa kappaletta, se käännetään 33 kielelle, ja se on saanut lukuisia arvostettuja kirjallisuuspalkintoja ja -ehdokkuuksia.