‘American Fiction’ asks: What, in our society, should a Black writer be?
“American Fiction” is a serious-minded satire about race relations that is often exasperatingly at odds with itself. A first feature written and directed by Cord Jefferson and adapted from Percival Everett’s 2001 novel, “Erasure,” it serves up an overload of potential bull’s-eyes. Some darts hit, others miss.
Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (a marvelous Jeffrey Wright) is a Black novelist and college English professor with a short fuse. We first
