<em>American Fiction</em> and the ‘Just Literature’ Problem

“Why are these books here?” asks Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, the writer protagonist of the film American Fiction, as he points to four novels stacked neatly on the shelf of a chain bookstore. The name Ellison sticks out from their spines.

Monk wants to know why his Greek-tragedy-inspired novels are housed not in “Mythology” but in the “African American Studies” section. A bookstore employee offers the obvious explanation: “I would imagine that this author, Ellison, is … Black.” He has the decency to stammer the response, but this does little to alleviate Monk’s fury. “That’s me, Ellison. He is me, and he and I are Black,” the writer fumes. “These books have nothing to do with African American studies.” He taps one of his titles with an impatient finger. “They’re just literature.”

“He is me, and he and I are Black” is something like a thesis statement for . Like the 2001 novel on which it’s based—, by Percival Everett—the film trades on the gap between this and , between how Monk is seen by others (as a Black novelist) and how Monk sees himself (as a novelist who is Black). It trades, too, on the distance between a writer who insists that his work is “just ” and an industry that demands that any novel by a Black writer is literature: a tool for social justice. This latter component is what distinguishes the film from its novelistic predecessor: Whereas has its sights set on political correctness (a very early-2000s bugaboo), is largely about . If 2001’s Monk recoiled against the racial stereotypes favored by bleeding-heart liberals, his 2023 successor resents how Black writers are recruited for anti-racism, progressive politics, and invectives against what one white character calls “the carceral state.”