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A review by sandrinepal
I Am Not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett
adventurous
dark
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Ted Turner and Jane Fonda. On a boat. With a seasick young Marxist.
That's just a few pages' worth of the awesomeness that is "I Am Not Sidney Poitier." The word that comes to mind is picaresque. I realize it's not entirely apt, since the picaro is typically a dishonest character, and that is one thing you absolutely cannot fault Not Sidney for. All the same, Not Sidney is tossed through storm after storm, encountering unlikely-but-all-too-likely characters along the way. His straight man take on each situation only makes the ridiculousness more apparent.
Reading this also made me reflect on what a difference ten years makes (or doesn't, in some respects). This was published in 2009 and Not Sidney's adventures are a satirical indictment of many things, ranging from the Deep South to Black Republicans, higher education to the media, police brutality and the inequities of the justice system. And yet, in the course of this odyssey, Not Sidney "only" undergoes one major beating (not saying at whose hands, so not a spoiler). Ten years later, "The Trees" was cover-to-cover death-centered. I'm not sure if that's Everett's own evolution as a writer or if it speaks to the changes that we as a society have undergone in that time. Maybe both. In any event, for anyone (who even ARE you?) not yet familiar with Everett's writing, I would say this is the best entry point out of the books by him that I have read.