New Releases by Percival Everett

Now with a brilliant new package, a re-issue of the sophomore novel by Percival Everett, New York Times bestselling author of National Book Award winner James. Haunting, provocative and bleakly funny, Walk Me to the Distance is Percival Everett’s brilliant reexamination of the Western, and a laconic tragicomedy about what it takes to survive in the last days of a bygone big-sky country. In self-imposed exile after returning home from the war in Vietnam, David Larson meanders into the barren town of Slut’s Hole, Wyoming, where a local widow takes him under her wing. After making a sort of home among the town’s hardscrabble locals, David grudgingly adopts a young Vietnamese girl abandoned along the highway. This sets in motion a set of tragic turns as Western mythos and frontier justice clash against the tides of a changing world. First published in 1985 by Clarion Books, Walk Me to the Distance was the sophomore novel of an iconic American voice. Over the course of his five decade career, Everett has written over twenty five books and been shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize (for 2020’s Telephone), twice longlisted for the Booker Prize, and the recipient of the 2024 National Book Award for the “genius” (The Atlantic) James, a brilliantly imagined retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view. James was a #1 New York Times bestseller and is being developed into film by Stephen Spielberg.

◎二十一世紀紐約時報百大好書第20名。 ◎改編電影《美式小說》獲奧斯卡最佳改編劇本、多倫多影展觀眾選擇大獎、「2023年AFI獎」10部最佳電影 ◎2024年普立茲獎、美國國家圖書獎得主艾佛列特的經典之作。 這個世界要求你自我介紹兩次── 第一次是你真正的樣子，第二次是別人告訴你該有的樣子。 作家書不賣，家庭破碎，經紀人抱怨他寫的東西「不夠黑」，如何是好？ 我走到文學書區，沒看見我的書， 我走到當代小說書區，也沒看見我的書， 但當我退後幾步時，我找到一個叫作非裔美國人研究的區域…… 放了四本我的書，包括我的《波斯人》， 不過那本書乍看之下唯一和非裔美國人有關的地方，就只有我在書衣上的作者照而已。 席隆尼斯‧「蒙克」‧艾利森的寫作生涯陷入谷底：他最新的手稿已被十七家出版社拒絕，這讓他格外受挫，畢竟他的前幾本小說可是「備受評論肯定」。他置身文壇邊緣，眼睜睜看著一本出自新人作家胡安妮塔‧梅‧詹金斯之手的小說：《我們住在貧民窟》迅速爆紅，滿是對非裔美國人群體的刻板印象，而她所謂的真實經驗，不過是「去哈林區拜訪親戚幾天而已」。 與此同時，蒙克還得面對現實生活中的家庭悲劇——年邁的母親罹患阿茲海默症，病情急轉直下；他也仍未從七年前父親自殺的陰影中走出。 在憤怒與絕望之下，蒙克匆忙寫出一本小說，意在嘲諷胡安妮塔那本暢銷書，並乘著怒氣要經紀人廣推這份稿子。他原本並沒有打算讓這部名為《我有病》的作品出版，更不認為有人會當真，但它卻真的出版了，以六十萬美金售出版權，用的還是「史泰格‧R‧利伊」這個假名，書名改成了《幹》。 很快地，這本小說成為文壇新寵。 蒙克將如何面對突如其來的家庭變故，並挺過這場荒謬的職涯風暴？ 【名家推薦】 朱宥勳｜小說家 神小風｜小說家 陳思宏｜作家 陳栢青｜作家 盧郁佳｜作家 聯合推薦 【各界讚譽】 「二十多年前，遠在這部小說被改編成奧斯卡得獎電影之前，艾佛列特就巧妙地以文學諷刺手法描繪出一個世界：在那裡，一位才智過人的小說家兼教授席隆尼斯‧「蒙克」‧艾利森，唯有委屈創作出最符合刻板印象、最像貧民窟的黑人苦難形象時，才得以贏得主流成功。要是接下來這幾十年能讓這個概念顯得荒謬過時就好了；可惜，即使是二○二三年的改編電影，唯一改變的，只有片名：《美式小說》（American Fiction）。」 ──《紐約時報》二十一世紀百大好書推薦詞 「本書展示了美國愚蠢的種族刻板印象，也顯現了我們的文化是如何閹割過去，如何否認我們自身的歷史的。我們太快假設，也太快遺忘，艾佛列特絕對是我們應該持續關注的作家。」——《花花公子》（Playboy） 「在令人太常認為是枯燥平庸的文學沙漠中，堪稱是綠洲，艾佛列特的作品……永遠都充滿智慧、有趣、形式大膽、滿懷知識野心……（本書的書中書）更是極度齷齪惡毒，且非常非常有趣的寫作，極盡惡毒之能事嘲諷著貧民窟類型書寫的種種陳腔濫調。」——《洛杉磯周報》（L.A. Weekly） 「艾佛列特筆下的傑作，他在這個尖銳卻充滿詩意又慈悲為懷的故事之中，歡天喜地炸開了我們對於政治／種族正確的觀念。這是本才華洋溢之作，一定要口耳相傳呼朋引伴推薦，且也保證絕對比你聽說的還要讚。」——《州報》（The State，南卡羅來納州哥倫比亞） 「輕薄短小、緊湊紮實、惡意滿滿，（書中書）則是堪稱現代版的《憨第德》，快節奏又有趣。」——《舊金山紀事報》（San Francisco Chronicle） 「艾佛列特對美國出版業及讀者所提出的尖銳諷刺可說色香味俱全，不過在玻璃心、受過教育、想讀點有關黑人貧民窟生活的嚴肅內容，卻又不想鬆動自身刻板印象的那個階級裡，可能不會幫他贏得太多朋友的青睞就是了。」——《芝加哥論壇報》（Chicago Tribune） 「本書值得所有人的關注，無論黑白，只要對幽微質問『黑和白』一詞的精雕細琢小說有興趣就行了。」——《圖書雜誌》（Book Magazine），湯姆‧勒克爾（Tom LeClair） 「以尖銳又有趣的方式，檢視了種族主義與出版這一行：編輯、出版社、讀者、作家都無一倖免。」——《書單雜誌》（Booklist），凡妮莎‧布希（Vanessa Bush） 「我為什麼喜歡帕西瓦‧艾佛列特的這本新小說呢？因為，就像他筆下的所有小說，本書也相當膽大妄為，其中也不只包含極度引人入勝的故事本身，還包括描述了人性之中最不可或缺的極壞與極好。在情節、對白、純粹的創新上，艾佛列特令人欽佩，是我輩作家中妥協最少的一個，而這本小說的結構也相當天才，本書折射了所謂的美國經驗，接著又大力重塑。席隆尼斯‧艾利森，身為一名作家呢，也是我數十年來，遇見過最尖銳、最慧黠、也最令人難忘的角色之一！」 ——霍華德‧諾曼（Howard Norman），作家 「諧擬之中還有諧擬，錯綜複雜彼此交錯成一道雙重字謎，本書可說是針對種族議題，最為無禮的書寫，自從……嗯，簡直前無古人。這就是假如勞夫‧艾利森筆下的隱形人爬出他的黑洞，然後說，『喲，老媽。』的話，會看起來的樣子。」——麗莎‧齊德納（Lisa Zeidner），作家 「帕西瓦‧艾佛列特這本書中的憤怒和才華洋溢，會讓你想起《隱形人》，不過其中諷刺的機智，全是出自艾佛列特之手。半數時間我都想笑到哭出來，另一半時間我則是想飛進正正當當的暴怒之中，然後去展開……算了，當我沒說吧。」——麥迪遜‧史馬特‧貝爾（Madison Smartt Bell），作家

James es un libro fascinante. Una reescritura de Las aventuras de Huckleberry Finn de Mark Twain desde el punto de vista de Jim, el esclavo. Con el humor típico de Percival Everett y una inteligencia sobrecogedora, el lector vive una gran aventura, la de la libertad. James es el nombre de la dignidad. El esclavo ha visitado de forma clandestina la biblioteca de su amo y ha aprendido a leer y escribir. Cuando se entera de que lo han vendido y lo van a separar de su mujer y su hija decide escaparse. En esa aventura trepidante lo acompaña Huck. Los dos se convierten en una pareja de personajes que se necesitan mutuamente no sólo para sobrevivir, también para conocerse y saber cuál es su verdadera conexión. El lenguaje es fundamental en este libro de lectura trepidante construido casi enteramente en diálogos inteligentes. Las críticas han sido excepcionales en todos los grandes medios de comunicación de Estados Unidos y Reino Unido. Considerada de forma generalizada como una obra de arte ha encumbrado a Percival Everett en la cima de los autores literarios contemporáneos de su país. Una fascinante y conmovedora lectura para todas las edades. Percival Everett es un escritor estadounidense distinguido con numerosos premios. Sus libros más recientes han sido publicados en De Conatus. Dr. No ganó el premio PEN 2023 Los árboles fue finalista del Booker Prize 2022. Cuánto azul considerado una obra fundamental por el crítico James Wood. American Fiction, ganadora del óscar 2024 al mejor guión adaptado está basada en su obra Cancelado. Próximamente en De Conatus también publicaremos Telephone, finalista del premio Pulitzer en 2021 y su obra poética Sonetos para una tonalidad perdida.

PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • A brilliant, action-packed reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, both harrowing and darkly humorous, told from the enslaved Jim''s point of view NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST • ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW''S 10 BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR • SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE • KIRKUS PRIZE WINNER • A LOS ANGELES TIMES BEST FICTION BOOK OF THE LAST 30 YEARS In development as a feature film to be produced by Steven Spielberg • A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times Book Review, LA Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, TIME, and more. "Genius"—The Atlantic • "A masterpiece that will help redefine one of the classics of American literature, while also being a major achievement on its own."—Chicago Tribune • "A provocative, enlightening literary work of art."—The Boston Globe • "Everett’s most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful."—The New York Times When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond. Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim’s agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first century American literature.

Auf der Shortlist für den Booker Preis 2022 – „Meisterhaft bewegt sich Everett zwischen unaussprechlichem Grauen und umwerfender Komödie.“ The New York Times Book Review USA, Anfang des 21. Jahrhunderts: Im Städtchen Money in den Südstaaten werden mehrere Männer ermordet: meist dick, doof und weiß. Neben jeder Leiche taucht ein Körper auf, der die Züge von Emmett Till trägt, eines 1955 gelynchten schwarzen Jungen. Zwei afroamerikanische Detektive ermitteln, doch der Sheriff sowie eine Gruppe hartnäckiger Rednecks setzen ihnen erbitterten Widerstand entgegen. Als sich die Morde auf ganz Amerika ausweiten, suchen die Detektive des Rätsels Lösung in den Archiven von Mama Z, die seit Jahrzehnten Buch führt über die Opfer der Lynchjustiz in Money. Eine atemberaubende Mischung aus Parodie und Hardboiled-Thriller, wie es sie bislang in der amerikanischen Literatur nicht gegeben hat.

Tout maître en puissance doit se poser la question du genre de nègre qu’il veut ou pour lequel il est prêt à payer. C’est un long et ennuyeux processus que de trouver le bon nègre. Étrangement, on a fort peu écrit sur cet épineux sujet. L’audacieux et inclassable Percival Everett mélange les genres et les tonalités, proposant une écriture poétique d’une liberté totale. Son Manuel de dressage, guide pour le propriétaire d’esclaves américain, prend la forme d’un document historique parodique. Poussant à se mettre dans la peau de ceux qui ont monnayé et réduit en esclavage d’autres êtres humains, le texte donne le vertige. Dans le recueil Truite de fond, la poésie se fait virtuose et élégante, bousculant notre perception de la réalité. Né en 1956 en Géorgie (États-Unis) et diplômé de littérature et de philosophie, Percival Everett est romancier, poète et peintre. Il dirige le département de littérature de la Southern California University et a signé de nombreux ouvrages, dont Effacement et Blessés. Traduit de l’anglais (États-Unis) par Anne-Laure Tissut Avertissement : cette version numérique de Manuel de dressage est optimisée pour une consultation sur smartphones et tablettes sous Androïd ou iOS. Elle peut éventuellement être utilisée sur d''autres équipements. Les fonctionnalités dépendent des applications de lecture utilisées.

''Percival Everett’s Grand Canyon, Inc. relates the tragicomic tale of crack rifle shot Winchell Nathaniel “Rhino” Tanner; his sidekick Simpson Trane, aka BB (named for the BB pellet lodged inextricably in his skull); and their battle to “acquire” the Grand Canyon by constructing an amusement park on Plateau Point. Matched with an artwork by Richard Prince, the publication is part of Gagosian’s Picture Books, an imprint conceived by author Emma Cline and dedicated to publishing fiction by leading authors alongside contributions by celebrated contemporary artists. Prince’s photograph, Untitled (Original Cowboy), which depicts the sandstone buttes of Monument Valley Navajo Tribal Park on the Arizona-Utah border, sees the artist continue his long engagement with the iconography of the American West. For this series, instead of rephotographing and manipulating images clipped from magazine advertisements, as he has done before, Prince visited the area to seek out quintessential viewpoints established by preceding photographers. “Prince is so wily and wry, in ways that echo Everett,” says Emma Cline. “They are both tricksters who take a sideways look at the mythology of the West and reveal it anew.”''--Publisher description.

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.

Kevin Pace è un artista e lavora da tempo a un dipinto che non lascia vedere a nessuno: non ai figli, non al migliore amico Richard e neppure a sua moglie Linda. Questa enorme tela di quattro metri per sette, interamente ricoperta da strati di vernice blu di diverse sfumature, potrebbe essere infine il suo capolavoro. Kevin non sa ancora dirlo o, meglio, non gli interessa, perso com’è nel suo passato di cui questo quadro sembra essere una sintesi, un’enigmatica e incomprensibile rappresentazione. Perché Kevin custodisce un segreto: dieci anni fa, a Parigi, ha avuto una relazione con una giovane pittrice e, seppur oggi non riesca a spiegarsi cosa lo mosse allora, il fantasma della ragazza e le bugie raccontate per anni non smettono di assediarlo. Mentre combatte con i demoni della sua memoria, Kevin deve difendere i sacrifici fatti in nome dell’arte e proteggere la sua famiglia da ciò che non hai mai avuto il coraggio di rivelare: il suo quadro, che racchiude un’indicibile verità, potrebbe essere la sua salvezza, o la sua condanna definitiva. Pungente, capriccioso, raffinato, imprevedibile Quanto blu ci mostra la migliore scrittura di Percival Everett e l’irrinunciabile festa di un romanzo perfetto. “Uno dei romanzi più eclettici e originali mai scritti in America.” Harper’s Magazine “Meraviglioso.” Kirkus Reviews “Un romanzo in cui vale la pena tuffarsi.” Los Angeles Times “Ogni singola pagina esprime l’urgenza di continuare, questo romanzo è un capolavoro.” The Boston Globe “Percival Everett ha tracciato fin dal suo primo libro una linea ascendente, Quanto blu è un romanzo generoso e appassionante, scritto da uno dei più grandi maestri letterari americani.” NPR

Artiste peintre noir américain, Kevin Pace, la soixantaine, se consacre depuis plusieurs années à un tableau très grand format qu’il dissimule jalousement aux regards de tous, gardant le secret sur ses avancées comme il garde secrets bien des épisodes de sa vie. Mais aujourd’hui, c’est à sa fille de dix-sept ans de lui demander de garder un nouveau secret, le sien. À partir d’une réflexion fondamentale sur l’ombre et la lumière, les mutations des sentiments, les couleurs changeantes du bonheur, Percival Everett livre un roman sur le geste créateur dans tous ses états et change littéralement de registre pour offrir à son lecteur une incursion plus narrative dans sa mythologie personnelle d’homme et d’artiste.

An artist ponders a painting he wants to keep private along with the back stories that inspired it, the secrets that continue to haunt him. He will not show his wife, children, or his best friend his work in progress, made up all of shades of blue.

A collection of short stories centered around the West includes tales of a deaf Native American girl wandering in the desert and a young boy coping with the death of his sister by angling for trout in the creek where she drowned.

In paperback for the first time, the much-beloved satirical novel The New York Times praised as "both a treatise and a romp" Baby Ralph has ways to pass the time in his crib—but they don''t include staring at a mobile. Aided by his mother, he reads voraciously: "All of Swift, all of Sterne, Invisible Man, Baldwin, Joyce, Balzac, Auden, Roethke," along with a generous helping of philosophy, semiotics, and trashy thrillers. He''s also fond of writing poems and stories (in crayon). But Ralph has limits. He''s mute by choice and can''t drive, so in his own estimation he''s not a genius. Unfortunately for him, everyone else disagrees. His psychiatrist kidnaps him for testing, and once his brilliance is quantified (IQ: 475), a Pentagon officer also abducts him. Diabolically funny and lacerating in its critique of poststructuralism, Glyph has the feverish plot of a thriller and the philosophical depth of a text by Roland Barthes. If anyone can map the wilds of literary theory, it''s Ralph, one of Percival Everett''s most enduring creations.

Winner of the PEN/Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature The characters in Big Picture, Percival Everett''s darkly comic collection of stories, are often driven to explosive, life-changing action. Everett delves into those moments when outside forces bring us to the brink of insanity or liberation. The catalysts in Everett''s tales are surprising: a stuffed boar''s head, mounted on the wall of a diner, becomes an object of intense, inexplicable desire; a painter is driven to the point of suicide by a mute who returns day after day to mow the artist''s lawn; the loss of a pair of dentures sparks a turn toward revelation. The characters respond to their dilemmas in ways that are both unpredictable and memorable. Everett''s highly original voice propels the reader into unfamiliar, yet unforgettable terrain: a landscape full of excitement, astonishment, and self-discovery.

"Anything we take for granted, Mr. Everett means to show us, may turn out to be a lie." —Wall Street Journal * Finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize * Finalist for the PEN / Faulkner Award for Fiction * A story inside a story inside a story. A man visits his aging father in a nursing home, where his father writes the novel he imagines his son would write. Or is it the novel that the son imagines his father would imagine, if he were to imagine the kind of novel the son would write? Let''s simplify: a woman seeks an apprenticeship with a painter, claiming to be his long-lost daughter. A contractor-for-hire named Murphy can''t distinguish between the two brothers who employ him. And in Murphy''s troubled dreams, Nat Turner imagines the life of William Styron. These narratives twist together with anecdotes from the nursing home, each building on the other until they crest in a wild, outlandish excursion of the inmates led by the father. Anchoring these shifting plotlines is a running commentary between father and son that sheds doubt on the truthfulness of each story. Because, after all, what narrator can we ever trust? Not only is Percival Everett by Virgil Russell a powerful, compassionate meditation on old age and its humiliations, it is an ingenious culmination of Everett''s recurring preoccupations. All of his prior work, his metaphysical and philosophical inquiries, his investigations into the nature of narrative, have led to this masterful book. Percival Everett has never been more cunning, more brilliant and subversive, than he is in this, his most important and elusive novel to date.

Lewis Martin, a retired college professor, stumbles upon the body of a friend of his, Martin Aguilera, when he stops by his cabin for a quick visit. When he later returns with the sheriff, the body is no longer there and there is no real evidence that anything had taken place in the cabin.

Percival Everett''s blistering satire about race and publishing, now adapted for the screen as the Academy Award-winning AMERICAN FICTION, directed by Cord Jefferson and starring Jeffrey Wright Thelonious "Monk" Ellison''s writing career has bottomed out: his latest manuscript has been rejected by seventeen publishers, which stings all the more because his previous novels have been "critically acclaimed." He seethes on the sidelines of the literary establishment as he watches the meteoric success of We''s Lives in Da Ghetto, a first novel by a woman who once visited "some relatives in Harlem for a couple of days." Meanwhile, Monk struggles with real family tragedies—his aged mother is fast succumbing to Alzheimer''s, and he still grapples with the reverberations of his father''s suicide seven years before. In his rage and despair, Monk dashes off a novel meant to be an indictment of Juanita Mae Jenkins''s bestseller. He doesn''t intend for My Pafology to be published, let alone taken seriously, but it is—under the pseudonym Stagg R. Leigh—and soon it becomes the Next Big Thing. How Monk deals with the personal and professional fallout galvanizes this audacious, hysterical, and quietly devastating novel.

Time Out Chicago, Top 10 Book of 2005 Winner of the 2006 PEN USA Literary Award for Fiction 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.

I am guilty not because of my actions, to which I freely admit, but for my accession, admission, confession that I executed these actions with not only deliberation and premeditation but with zeal and paroxysm and purpose . . . The true answer to your question is shorter than the lie. Did you? I did. This is a confession of a victim turned villain. When Ishmael Kidder''s eleven-year-old daughter is brutally murdered, it stands to reason that he must take revenge by any means necessary. The punishment is carried out without guilt, and with the usual equipment—duct tape, rope, and superglue. But the tools of psychological torture prove to be the most devastating of all. Percival Everett''s most lacerating indictment to date, The Water Cure follows the gruesome reasoning and execution of revenge in a society that has lost a common moral ground, where rules are meaningless. A master storyteller, Everett draws upon disparate elements of Western philosophy, language theory, and military intelligence reports to create a terrifying story of loss, anger, and helplessness in our modern world. This is a timely and important novel that confronts the dark legacy of the Bush years and the state of America today.

Après l''atroce assassinat de Lane, sa fille unique, âgée de onze ans, Ismaël Kidder enlève un quidam qu''il a décidé de tenir pour coupable du crime. Dans le sous-sol de sa coquette maison de romancier à succès où il le séquestre à l''insu de tous, il soumet l''homme à la torture... A travers ce portrait sans concession d''un individu fou de douleur passant du statut de victime à celui de bourreau, Percival Everett, qui écrivit ce roman en réponse aux exactions commises, au nom du salut des Etats-Unis d''Amérique, dans le camp de Guantánamo ou la prison d''Abou Ghraib, dresse un audacieux parallèle entre un supplice infligé à l''échelle individuelle et la pratique de la torture en temps de guerre. Dès lors, Ismaël Kidder semble incarner, dans son délire d''ange exterminateur dissertant sur les fondamentaux de la philosophie antique, cet homme tristement universel en qui peuvent cohabiter, pour se conforter l''une l''autre, raison et barbarie, deux ressorts douloureusement cruciaux de l''histoire contemporaine.

Très vite, le prodigieux QI et la vulnérabilité du bébé Ralph ont fait de lui l''objet de toutes les convoitises : celle du docteur Steimmel, une psychiatre en mal de reconnaissance, qui veut lui disséquer le cerveau. Celle des services secrets du Pentagone qui voient en l''enfant un précieux atout stratégique. Celle, enfin, des tenants de la religion désireux de vérifier sur lui l''efficacité de leurs rituels d''exorcisme... Brutalement arraché à son père, un universitaire aussi ambitieux que frustré, et à sa mère, une artiste peintre qui doute de son talent, Ralph, qui refuse de parler mais maîtrise avec brio le langage écrit, relate les enlèvements dont il est successivement victime sans cesser de rédiger des notes sophistiquées inspirées des nombreuses lectures que lui a procurées sa mère adorée dont l''amour inconditionnel et désintéressé fait figure d''unique repère au milieu de l''hystérie générale. Les réflexions intentionnellement pédantes du bébé mutique constituent l''un des points forts de ce récit jubilatoire où Percival Everett détourne les conventions du discours savant au profit d''une savoureuse composition romanesque en convoquant tour à tour le traité de physique, la controverse sémiotique ou l''essai philosophique. Parodie de structures et de genres, satire des milieux universitaires au fil de démonstrations délirantes et de dialogues improbables entre Socrate et James Baldwin ou Wittgenstein et Nietzsche, ce roman irrévérencieux se plaît à malmener nombre d''icônes du postmodernisme, dont Roland Barthes, qui y apparaît en "protagoniste invité" sous les traits d''un clown burlesque aux propos abscons... Dans ce récit mené tambour battant où l''érudition rencontre l''absurde comme son envers obligé, Percival Everett, à travers les tribulations de son bébé héros, propose une réjouissante peinture des névroses dont se nourrit l''aventure humaine.