In Percival Everett by Virgil Russell, the ground is constantly shifting. Is this the story of an aging writer as dictated to his inquisitive son, or is the son imagining what his father might say to him, or is the son even real?
Or is it about a ranch owner who stumbles into a relationship with a horse doctor? Is Murphy a contractor who accepts an antique Leica camera from a morbidly obese neighbor or a painter who's just discovered he might have an adult daughter? And just how did Nat Turner survive from the time of his pre-Civil War rebellion to hang out with Charlton Heston as part of Martin Luther King's inner circle during the March on Washington?
The elderly author in the nursing home, the narrator who comes closest to mirroring Everett, angrily recalls how one critic told him his work "was about itself and process and not about objective reality and life in the world," so "I asked him what he thought objective reality was. Then I punched him."
Eventually, the narrative settles into a single groove, but it's not entirely safe to assume that the aging writer in a nursing home is the same writer from the earlier chapters.
Everett's metafictional reflections on identity free him to create scenes of great emotional authenticity, as the array of characters gives him multiple options with which to tackle some of the toughest questions we can ask ourselves about our relationships to the world--and the people closest to us. --Ron Hogan, founder of Beatrice.com