Feb 28, 2024
This week on On Story, a conversation with Cord Jefferson on
adapting the novel Erasure into his strikingly sharp debut feature
American Fiction.
Cord Jefferson is an Emmy-winning writer who earned his chops on
some of television’s most formative shows in recent years: Master
of None, The Good Place, Succession, and Watchmen. His debut
feature, American Fiction, won the Audience Award at the 30th
annual Austin Film Festival.
American Fiction is an adaptation of Percival Everett’s novel Erasure. The film introduces us to Thelonius Monk, played by Jeffrey Wright, a weary writer frustrated by the publishing industry’s obsession with reducing artists of color into stereotypes. In an effort to show the industry its own foolishness, Monk offers up a pandering manuscript that, much to his chagrin, becomes wildly successful.
Cord discusses bringing his own perspective and sense of humor
to the source material, and marrying comedy and drama in one
film.
Clips of American Fiction courtesy of Amazon/MGM Studios.