Prestige Fiction Is Dead

IN THE 2023 FILM American Fiction, an adaption of Percival Everett’s novel Erasure (2001), a hilarious but unexpectedly revealing exchange occurs between its protagonist, Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, and a university colleague. Both men are creative writing professors, but Monk writes more slowly. After receiving some unwelcome news about an enforced break from teaching, Monk snaps at his more prolific colleague, “If you spent less time spying on me, you could probably write a dozen more novels that people buy at airports with their neck pillows and Cheez-Its!”