Jeffrey Wright plays a frustrated author who writes an preposterously stereotypical “Black” book as a joke, only to have it become a bestseller in the comedy American Fiction.
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The Oscars are coming up on March 10, so we are listening back to our original reviews of some of the movies nominated this year for best picture. Here’s critic Bob Mondello with his take on “American Fiction.”
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED NPR BROADCAST)
BOB MONDELLO: Professor Thelonious Ellison, known to friends and family as Monk, has not been having a good day when his agent calls about his latest rejection by a publisher.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “AMERICAN FICTION”)
JOHN ORTIZ: (As Arthur) They want a Black book.
JEFFREY WRIGHT: (As Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison) They have a Black book. I’m Black, and it’s my book.
ORTIZ: (As Arthur) You know what I mean.
WRIGHT: (Thelonious ‘Monk’ Ellison) You mean they want me to write about the cop killing some teenager or a single mom in Dorchester raising five kids.
ORTIZ: (As Arthur) Dorchester’s pretty white now. But, yes.
MONDELLO: Monk’s having this conversation while trying to hail a cab that ignores him and picks up a white guy just a few feet away, which does not help his mood. Then at a book festival, his symposium is sparsely attended because everyone’s down the hall listening to bestselling author Sintara Golden.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, “AMERICAN FICTION”)
NICOLE KEMPSKIE: (As Moderator) How did you come to write this book?
ISSA RAE: (As Sintara Golden) What really struck me was that too few books were about my people. Where are our stories? Where is our representation?
KEMPSKIE: (As Moderator) Would you give us the pleasure of reading an excerpt?
RAE: (As Sintara Golden, reading) Yo, Sharonda (ph). Girl, you be pregnant again?
MONDELLO: It’s just too much. Monk, played as increasingly exasperated by Jeffrey Wright, retreats to his family’s beach house, where he gets an idea and sends it to his…
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