Customer Reviews

I Am Not Sidney Poitier: A Novel

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Prior to reading this book American Desert was the book I told people new to Everett to read in order to transition them to his style, in a sense. This book has taken the crown! Unlike Glyph, A History of The African American People (Proposed), and Erasure, this book tells its story without the (wonderful) intermissions and interludes that some readers have found disconcerting. (Those tools do, however, drive the story, in my opinion, just not in the straight-forward narrative sort of way.)

This book retains his "Percival Everett-ness" with all the whimsy, profundity, and outright silliness of his kind of storytelling. Often the protagonist is as bewildered by the nonsense swirling around him as the reader is, even while being quite absurd - and always cool in an offbeat way - in his own right. And, as one would expect from an Everett book, our hero is often an anti-hero to the world around him. That's all I will say about the story itself as the editorial review/synopsis gives a good description.

His work is timeless and this is no exception. You are pushed to laugh out loud, giggle, smile, and think. He has the ability, unmatched, in my opinion, to dissect the society we find ourselves in; praising - in his way - its positives, mocking its flaws, and finally giving the whole kit-and-kaboodle a firm finger (you know the one). This is a must read, especially if you are new to Everett's work. I hope he never gets tired of writing because I will never get tired of reading his work!

Although not up in the stratosphere of greatness with Erasure, this novel was a great read, and very much imbued with the ghost of Percival Everett. Not that he's dead. I mean his spirit, his Everett-ness: smart, wry, sardonic, concise, and lots of compelling characters, including Everett himself! I do hope he's not that cavalier as a teacher; I'm guessing not.

My one quibble is the one-dimensional Southern white characters. I do think there's still a lot that's worthy of skewering in the Southern white racial psyche, but some of the characters here are cardboard stereotypes trucked in from Tobacco Road. That seemed too easy.

Overall, though, this book is sort of an updating of Ellison's Invisible Man, with an even more absurdist twist. It's also very realistic, in that it exposes many of the absurdities that remain in our ever-raced and -classed society.

Let's get this out of the way: Although he may look a little like the famous actor, Not Sidney Poitier is not Sidney Poitier. Nor (as far as he knows) is he related, although he doesn't know who his father is. Instead, he's the wealthiest African American orphan in America, because his mother--the kind of woman who would name her son Not Sidney--invested all of her money in an upstart network headed by the dotty and lovable mogul Ted Turner, who is not really that Ted Turner (we are reassured in a foreword), who is married to an aerobics video queen named Jane Fonda, who becomes a father figure to Not Sidney when the boy's mother dies, and who has an attention span that wouldn't last the length of this sentence. And because Percival Everett is the type of author to spare no one, least of all himself, there's also a professor named Percival Everett who is not Percival Everett and who teaches a course in Nonsense Philosophy, which lives up to its name.

As you would imagine simply from the book's title, there's a lot of humor that resembles the old "Who's on First" routine. ("I'm Not Sidney Poitier." "Of course you're not.") And to top it off, young Not Sidney has the ability to mesmerize some people and get them to succumb to his commands--although practicing this superhuman power gets him into some awkward situations. But, as readers have come to expect from Everett, there's a serious, if always ambiguous, undertone to the humor, particularly once Not Sidney decides to leave Ted and Jane and strike out on his own.

The first time Not Sidney drives out of Atlanta, he is immediately arrested for driving while black and is impressed into a chain gang. In subsequent adventures, he buys his way into college ("Perhaps I'll get an education, perhaps not"), takes a class with Professor Everett ("I'll give you whatever grade you want, but A is such a nice letter"), joins a black fraternity ("This was when my life again became essentially a wildlife film"), and dates a young woman whose aristocratic family looks disdainfully on Not Sidney until they find out how much he's worth. Eventually he ends up in Smuteye, where he decides to help a community of sisters build a church, in spite of his personal agnosticism. ("I will not come to a place called Smuteye," his accountant wisely insists when Not Sidney calls him for money.)

"I Am Not Sidney Poitier" is a surprisingly touching novel about a young man who is on the lookout for both "a valuable learning experience, a rite of passage" and a worthy "way to spend my ridiculously easy-to-come-by money." There is a surrealism throughout Not Sidney's quest that echoes some of the better scenes of "Invisible Man." And it's one of the funniest books I've ever read--both for its blissfully goofy one-liners and for its scathing satire of the supposedly "post-racial" era in which we live. This might well be Everett's masterpiece.

LOVED not-really-Ted Turner -- he stole all of his scenes. Though not-Percival had his moments.

And who'd have thought not-really-Ted would come up with something so profound as this: In response to one of Not Sidney's crises, he said: "You have to decide what you need out of this, what's important to you." Of course, I realize that real-Percival said this, not not-Ted, but, um, anyway, to continue ....

Overall, the book was simply craziness in a good way. Loved the whole Fesmerizing thread. I did find it a little tiresome that just about every time Not Sidney ventured outside of Atlanta, he ended up in lynch-mob-county. But it ended up making a kind of cumulative sense in the end, so I was able to suspend my annoyance.

I like how Mr. Everett has this knack of turning things on their head. Such as the wickedly funny, but shouldn't-be-laughing skewering of back-back-back-backwoods Peckerwoodians that is every bit as outlandish as the skewering that so many people like to give the 'hood.

This is the 2nd of Mr. Everett's books I've read, the first being Erasure. I recommend that highly; liked it even better than Not Sidney Poitier.

This was the first Percival Everett book that I've read and am I looking forward to more of his work. This book was hysterical and had me laughing out loud throughout the book. A young man named Not Sidney Poitier, yes that is his name, encounters life without a family -- he doesn't know who his dad is and his mother has died. And by the way, he does bear a striking resemblance to you guessed it -- the real Sidney Poitier.

Fortunately for Not Sidney, his mother invested in Turner Broadcasting very early on and made a fortune. Ted Turner happens to hear about him and next thing we know Not Sidney is living in Turner's sprawling mansion outside of Atlanta. Not Sidney buys his way into college even though he isn't very interested in formal education. Not Sidney sets out to go back to LA, where the fun and games rev into high gear.

Everett's dialogue is first-rate and the exchanges between Not Sidney and Ted Turner had me laughing every single time. Not just smiles, but laugh out loud funny. And Not Sidney's trek through the South has to be one of the great send-ups of racists from the South.

My one small quibble, and I want provide any spoilers, is that the last 20 pages didn't match the quality of the rest of the book. Outside of that, this is pure genius and Everett is a writer not to be missed -- I can't wait to begin my next Everett novel.

One of the best novels I've read in years. Percival Everett is my new favorite writer. The book reminded me of Catch 22 with race (rather than war) as a backdrop. Buy it now if you like witty, interesting books.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It made me laugh out loud as I read it on the subway. The twists are enticing and I enjoyed the absurdity of the story.

While this novel starts out with a certain amount of promise; it quickly deteriorates into nothing more than a running summary of Sidney Poitier movie scripts from the past.The Author even writes himself in as teaching at Morehouse college, wishful thinking? Ted Turner, a major player in this tale is less than a fully drawn character although by far garners a lion's share of the readers' sympathies. As in "Poor Ted Turner, how did you get so deep into a book so bad?"
Since this is not the first book I've read by Everett I was prepared for the
possibility of being let-down, he has proven quite inconsistant in his past efforts.
The up-side to the novel is that there is a generation of potential readers who know nothing about Sidney Portier and his acting career so this could be a learning experience for them.

I read this book a little over a year ago and it has still stuck with me as one of the books that I compare all the others to. The subject matter her isn't particularly profound or serious, but the writing is so natural and beautiful. The quirky characters complement the plot line, in which Not Sidney, the protagonist, unknowingly relives the movies of Sidney Poitier, the actor for whom he was (Not) named after. The story works on two levels since Not Sidney's adventures still made sense to me even though I am not familiar with any of the movies that inspire the narrative.

I purchased this book after hearing a review on NPR. It was one of those books that grew on me as I read it. If you are a fan of Sidney Poitier movies, you will enjoy how Not Sidney's life parallel's the "real " Poitier movies. The Thanksgving episode is especially enjoyable .