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I Am Not Sidney Poitier
An irresistible comic novel from the master storyteller Percival Everett, and an irreverent take on race, class, and identity in America
I was, in life, to be a gambler, a risk-taker, a swashbuckler, a knight. I accepted, then and there, my place in the world. I was a fighter of windmills. I was a chaser of whales. I was Not Sidney Poitier.
Not Sidney Poitier is an amiable young man in an absurd country. The sudden death of his mother orphans him at age eleven, leaving him with an unfortunate name, an uncanny resemblance to the famous actor, and, perhaps more fortunate, a staggering number of shares in the Turner Broadcasting Corporation.
Percival Everett’s hilarious new novel follows Not Sidney’s tumultuous life, as the social hierarchy scrambles to balance his skin color with his fabulous wealth. Maturing under the less-than watchful eye of his adopted foster father, Ted Turner, Not gets arrested in rural Georgia for driving while black, sparks a dinnertable explosion at the home of his manipulative girlfriend, and sleuths a murder case in Smut Eye, Alabama, all while navigating the recurrent communication problem: “What’s your name?” a kid would ask. “Not Sidney,” I would say. “Okay, then what is it?”
247 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2009
565 people are currently reading
11580 people want to read
About the author
Percival Everett
70 books8,775 followersPercival L. Everett (born 1956) is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.
There might not be a more fertile mind in American fiction today than Everett’s. In 22 years, he has written 19 books, including a farcical Western, a savage satire of the publishing industry, a children’s story spoofing counting books, retellings of the Greek myths of Medea and Dionysus, and a philosophical tract narrated by a four-year-old.
The Washington Post has called Everett “one of the most adventurously experimental of modern American novelists.” And according to The Boston Globe, “He’s literature’s NASCAR champion, going flat out, narrowly avoiding one seemingly inevitable crash only to steer straight for the next.”
Everett, who teaches courses in creative writing, American studies and critical theory, says he writes about what interests him, which explains his prolific output and the range of subjects he has tackled. He also describes himself as a demanding teacher who learns from his students as much as they learn from him.
Everett’s writing has earned him the PEN USA 2006 Literary Award (for his 2005 novel, Wounded), the Academy Award for Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (for his 2001 novel, Erasure), the PEN/Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature (for his 1996 story collection, Big Picture) and the New American Writing Award (for his 1990 novel, Zulus). He has served as a judge for, among others, the 1997 National Book Award for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1991.
There might not be a more fertile mind in American fiction today than Everett’s. In 22 years, he has written 19 books, including a farcical Western, a savage satire of the publishing industry, a children’s story spoofing counting books, retellings of the Greek myths of Medea and Dionysus, and a philosophical tract narrated by a four-year-old.
The Washington Post has called Everett “one of the most adventurously experimental of modern American novelists.” And according to The Boston Globe, “He’s literature’s NASCAR champion, going flat out, narrowly avoiding one seemingly inevitable crash only to steer straight for the next.”
Everett, who teaches courses in creative writing, American studies and critical theory, says he writes about what interests him, which explains his prolific output and the range of subjects he has tackled. He also describes himself as a demanding teacher who learns from his students as much as they learn from him.
Everett’s writing has earned him the PEN USA 2006 Literary Award (for his 2005 novel, Wounded), the Academy Award for Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (for his 2001 novel, Erasure), the PEN/Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature (for his 1996 story collection, Big Picture) and the New American Writing Award (for his 1990 novel, Zulus). He has served as a judge for, among others, the 1997 National Book Award for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1991.
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January 15, 2022
Remember this guy?
It's the great Sidney Poitier, of course. The iconic, dignified, inimitable Sidney Poitier.
The main character of this book is Not Sidney Poitier. He's not Sidney Poitier. Got it?
Okay, now that that's out of the way, let the review begin.
I knew after reading Telephone that Percival Everett was a remarkable writer. Now, I'm convinced he's a genius. One of our greatest living writers. He's written 31 novels to date, people. Time to catch up.
I Am Not Sidney Poitier is a work of comedic brilliance. It's satirical, it's absurd, it's plain old hilarious. On each page, I was surprised and amused. I laughed out loud countless times (which is saying something these days, let me tell you).
It's awful, in a way, to say I laughed all the way through this book, given how brutal the story really is. This book is about identity, and in particular African-American identity. Poor Not Sidney suffers his whole life because of the identities others assign to him. In his girlfriend's home he's considered too dark; in the fraternity he's not black enough; often, because he looks exactly like Sidney Poitier, people expect him to BE him, embody all the near-divine qualities attributed to the (now late) actor. Through all this, he is sexually abused, he is unfairly incarcerated, and people wrongly assume he is poor and up to no good.
So, yeah. It's serious. But it's also seriously funny. In fact, I was so amused and delighted with the humour here that I completely neglected to notice that the many insane scenarios that pepper this novel are parodies of Sidney Poitier films. This only dawned on me at the very end, and caused me to love the book all the more, for its complexity and also for its deliberateness (it's not just a wacky romp through Everett's mind).
Can you blame me for being a little distracted? I mean, Ted Turner shows up here, and Jane Fonda, and of course, Wanda Fonda (her niece). Add to the mix hillbillies and a South Asian money manager who ends up managing a rap station, calling everyone "dawg". There's also a professor who teaches a course entitled "The Philosophy of Nonsense" - he's a hoot.
All of it serves to show, in a farcical way, how no one sees Not Sidney Poitier. They see his sexuality, they see his race, they see his wealth, they see the tint of his skin, they hear his weird name, they see his resemblance to someone famous. But who IS he, and who are we, for that matter, when all that is stripped away?
God, I am SO grateful Percival Everett exists. I'm also so glad that Graywolf Press exists, and publishes all his work, allowing him to be this absolute, uncompromising unicorn. A writer who makes you laugh, and then, when the dust settles, causes you to deeply question the way you look at people, and yourself.
It's the great Sidney Poitier, of course. The iconic, dignified, inimitable Sidney Poitier.
The main character of this book is Not Sidney Poitier. He's not Sidney Poitier. Got it?
Okay, now that that's out of the way, let the review begin.
I knew after reading Telephone that Percival Everett was a remarkable writer. Now, I'm convinced he's a genius. One of our greatest living writers. He's written 31 novels to date, people. Time to catch up.
I Am Not Sidney Poitier is a work of comedic brilliance. It's satirical, it's absurd, it's plain old hilarious. On each page, I was surprised and amused. I laughed out loud countless times (which is saying something these days, let me tell you).
It's awful, in a way, to say I laughed all the way through this book, given how brutal the story really is. This book is about identity, and in particular African-American identity. Poor Not Sidney suffers his whole life because of the identities others assign to him. In his girlfriend's home he's considered too dark; in the fraternity he's not black enough; often, because he looks exactly like Sidney Poitier, people expect him to BE him, embody all the near-divine qualities attributed to the (now late) actor. Through all this, he is sexually abused, he is unfairly incarcerated, and people wrongly assume he is poor and up to no good.
So, yeah. It's serious. But it's also seriously funny. In fact, I was so amused and delighted with the humour here that I completely neglected to notice that the many insane scenarios that pepper this novel are parodies of Sidney Poitier films. This only dawned on me at the very end, and caused me to love the book all the more, for its complexity and also for its deliberateness (it's not just a wacky romp through Everett's mind).
Can you blame me for being a little distracted? I mean, Ted Turner shows up here, and Jane Fonda, and of course, Wanda Fonda (her niece). Add to the mix hillbillies and a South Asian money manager who ends up managing a rap station, calling everyone "dawg". There's also a professor who teaches a course entitled "The Philosophy of Nonsense" - he's a hoot.
All of it serves to show, in a farcical way, how no one sees Not Sidney Poitier. They see his sexuality, they see his race, they see his wealth, they see the tint of his skin, they hear his weird name, they see his resemblance to someone famous. But who IS he, and who are we, for that matter, when all that is stripped away?
God, I am SO grateful Percival Everett exists. I'm also so glad that Graywolf Press exists, and publishes all his work, allowing him to be this absolute, uncompromising unicorn. A writer who makes you laugh, and then, when the dust settles, causes you to deeply question the way you look at people, and yourself.
May 7, 2023
This book genuinely made me LOL, which is something very few books do. I'm tempted to give five stars, but the dream sequences and some of the more abstract humour failed to hit the right notes for me.
Incidentally, you don't NEED to have watched Sidney Poitier's back catalogue to enjoy this novel, but being a fan of Poitier and having seen all the movies referenced by Everett within its pages, I have no doubt it helps.
Incidentally, you don't NEED to have watched Sidney Poitier's back catalogue to enjoy this novel, but being a fan of Poitier and having seen all the movies referenced by Everett within its pages, I have no doubt it helps.
January 16, 2019
I Am Not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett
[UPDATE: 1/16/19--see note at the end of this review
I've quoted this out-of-context gem to give you a taste and because it made me laugh. Even though so many things (for instance the title of this book) are explained fairly quickly, I don't want to destroy anybody's delight at the discovery that I felt on every page of this wild ride about appearing to others as you are not, and eventually finding a difficult answer to that old Buddhist koan, "Who am I?" I laughed while I moaned. This is serious and hilarious stuff.
This is my second Percival Everett novel, and I'm smitten enough to have put all of his many books on my "to read" list. The man has chops. By that I mean that from the first word, my editor's head goes on vacation and my reader's takes over while my writer's head squeals in the background, "Look what he just did! This is absolutely magnificent. Note to self: 'Steal that.' The guy is a genius."
I want to meet him. But he's very private (no website) so the closest I'll probably get, aside from reading everything he ever writes, may be this terrific interview.
12/15/18 Rereading Response
When I first read this, it was my second Percival Everett book, and I was so surprised by the writing and the humor that that was mostly what I saw.
A little over a year later, after reading 14 of Mr. Everett's wildly different books, I've now reread I Am Not Sidney Poitier and my take is different: I hardly laughed at all for the first half (second half is funnier). Instead I was moved by the pain.
Like many of Everett's books, this one has an intelligent, introspective black male protagonist who does not fit any of the labels smashed onto him. He is beaten up, sexually used, arrested for being black, hazed for not being black enough, disparaged for being "so dark," called a loser, and finally lauded for being somebody he is not and never will be (and on the profoundest level, this is true for all of us; read the book to understand that). Eighteen-year-old Not Sidney (that's his real name) is not without agency (his abilities are ones I will leave for other readers to discover), but he is surrounded by people who only see his race or his wealth, or conversely by non-sequitur-spouting geniuses who have succeeded despite themselves and, although they see Not Sidney without the cultural labels, are of little help in his quest to find his mission in life because they function like ping-pong balls, flinging about their own lives.
I'm almost jealous of my own first experience reading Not Sidney—my discovery of this funny, wild romp with substance whose roiling humor and spontaneously brilliant life energy make the pain both bearable and entertaining. But after reading so many Percival Everett Western stories, as well as his stories about geniuses and artists (hint: If you're interested in reading Not Sidney for the first time, do yourself a favor and first read Erasure for the first time), I understood more and found even more to appreciate in the rereading.
***
After Book Club Discussion Update 1/16/19
I read this book for the second time due to the fact that my book club agreed to read it. Our meeting was yesterday and it was wonderful to finally share discussion with others who had read it—even those who did not like it. It made for great talk. I kept pretty silent for the beginning of the meeting because I was dying to hear what others thought. After sharing their opinions, the other members had questions for me, and I found myself expounding on the meaning of the book and the ending. I kept thinking I was going too far, but the other members told me with enthusiasm: No, that what I said made them like the book more because they understood things they hadn’t understood before. So I thought I’d add a brief analysis here:
In my opinion, I Am Not Sidney Poitier is a quest story—a search for identity, or one’s true essence, in a culture where that is largely obscured by other people’s perceptions of race, wealth, and the like. Each event in this quest is a step for Not Sidney to find out who he is. The book opens with him wondering who his father was, then careens into a life where he is a screen for other people’s projections. After getting beaten up, locked up, applauded for his money, locked up again, he finally decides to go back to where he came from . . . only to be met at the L.A. airport by yet another person who mistakes him for the real Sidney Poitier. Exhausted and depleted of any sense of identity, he acquiesces and ends up receiving an award as the Greatest Black Man in the Universe—a role that is a distortion of anybody, including the real Sidney Poitier. His last line, in my opinion, is perfect:
Upon accepting the award, he explains that he came back here to try to connect to something that he lost—his whole self. He acknowledges that all these people pelting him with adulation seem to know him better than he knows himself. He feels the weight of these projections in the metaphor of the trophy they’ve handed him. “. . . [A]s I stand like a specimen before these strangely unstrange faces, I know finally what should be written on that stone [his mother’s unmarked gravestone]. It should be what mine will say: I AM NOT MYSELF TODAY.”
He has discovered what Buddhists call “emptiness.” When you peel away all the layers of what you may think defines you, you will discover that you are none of those things. So what are you left with? Emptiness. Ultimately, this and death are things we will all have to contend with if we want to know ourselves.
I hope that helps anybody who is deeply interested in this wonderful, raucously funny book and confused by what it’s about or the ending.
[UPDATE: 1/16/19--see note at the end of this review
Once after dinner, as we sat in front of the television watching an Adventures of Superman rerun, I asked, "Was my father handsome?"
She replied, "Some might say yes."
"Was he smart?" I asked.
She stared at the television. "Why is it that after all the bullets have bounced off Superman's chest, he then ducks when the villain throws the empty gun at him?"
I looked at the television and wondered, knowing also that my quest for some detail about my history had been again thwarted, albeit with a very good question. I never pressed terribly hard, thinking that someday the story would surface, but then she died. (pp. 84-85)
I've quoted this out-of-context gem to give you a taste and because it made me laugh. Even though so many things (for instance the title of this book) are explained fairly quickly, I don't want to destroy anybody's delight at the discovery that I felt on every page of this wild ride about appearing to others as you are not, and eventually finding a difficult answer to that old Buddhist koan, "Who am I?" I laughed while I moaned. This is serious and hilarious stuff.
This is my second Percival Everett novel, and I'm smitten enough to have put all of his many books on my "to read" list. The man has chops. By that I mean that from the first word, my editor's head goes on vacation and my reader's takes over while my writer's head squeals in the background, "Look what he just did! This is absolutely magnificent. Note to self: 'Steal that.' The guy is a genius."
I want to meet him. But he's very private (no website) so the closest I'll probably get, aside from reading everything he ever writes, may be this terrific interview.
12/15/18 Rereading Response
When I first read this, it was my second Percival Everett book, and I was so surprised by the writing and the humor that that was mostly what I saw.
A little over a year later, after reading 14 of Mr. Everett's wildly different books, I've now reread I Am Not Sidney Poitier and my take is different: I hardly laughed at all for the first half (second half is funnier). Instead I was moved by the pain.
Like many of Everett's books, this one has an intelligent, introspective black male protagonist who does not fit any of the labels smashed onto him. He is beaten up, sexually used, arrested for being black, hazed for not being black enough, disparaged for being "so dark," called a loser, and finally lauded for being somebody he is not and never will be (and on the profoundest level, this is true for all of us; read the book to understand that). Eighteen-year-old Not Sidney (that's his real name) is not without agency (his abilities are ones I will leave for other readers to discover), but he is surrounded by people who only see his race or his wealth, or conversely by non-sequitur-spouting geniuses who have succeeded despite themselves and, although they see Not Sidney without the cultural labels, are of little help in his quest to find his mission in life because they function like ping-pong balls, flinging about their own lives.
I'm almost jealous of my own first experience reading Not Sidney—my discovery of this funny, wild romp with substance whose roiling humor and spontaneously brilliant life energy make the pain both bearable and entertaining. But after reading so many Percival Everett Western stories, as well as his stories about geniuses and artists (hint: If you're interested in reading Not Sidney for the first time, do yourself a favor and first read Erasure for the first time), I understood more and found even more to appreciate in the rereading.
***
After Book Club Discussion Update 1/16/19
I read this book for the second time due to the fact that my book club agreed to read it. Our meeting was yesterday and it was wonderful to finally share discussion with others who had read it—even those who did not like it. It made for great talk. I kept pretty silent for the beginning of the meeting because I was dying to hear what others thought. After sharing their opinions, the other members had questions for me, and I found myself expounding on the meaning of the book and the ending. I kept thinking I was going too far, but the other members told me with enthusiasm: No, that what I said made them like the book more because they understood things they hadn’t understood before. So I thought I’d add a brief analysis here:
In my opinion, I Am Not Sidney Poitier is a quest story—a search for identity, or one’s true essence, in a culture where that is largely obscured by other people’s perceptions of race, wealth, and the like. Each event in this quest is a step for Not Sidney to find out who he is. The book opens with him wondering who his father was, then careens into a life where he is a screen for other people’s projections. After getting beaten up, locked up, applauded for his money, locked up again, he finally decides to go back to where he came from . . . only to be met at the L.A. airport by yet another person who mistakes him for the real Sidney Poitier. Exhausted and depleted of any sense of identity, he acquiesces and ends up receiving an award as the Greatest Black Man in the Universe—a role that is a distortion of anybody, including the real Sidney Poitier. His last line, in my opinion, is perfect:
Upon accepting the award, he explains that he came back here to try to connect to something that he lost—his whole self. He acknowledges that all these people pelting him with adulation seem to know him better than he knows himself. He feels the weight of these projections in the metaphor of the trophy they’ve handed him. “. . . [A]s I stand like a specimen before these strangely unstrange faces, I know finally what should be written on that stone [his mother’s unmarked gravestone]. It should be what mine will say: I AM NOT MYSELF TODAY.”
He has discovered what Buddhists call “emptiness.” When you peel away all the layers of what you may think defines you, you will discover that you are none of those things. So what are you left with? Emptiness. Ultimately, this and death are things we will all have to contend with if we want to know ourselves.
I hope that helps anybody who is deeply interested in this wonderful, raucously funny book and confused by what it’s about or the ending.
January 4, 2025
Second time around was as good or better than the first. When you become enamored with an author as I am with Professor Everett, you gobble up everything he writes.
The point I'm making is that books he'd written after this come to mind and you realize the favorite characters from them were developed from those in this one. As an example, Everett inserts himself as a character who teaches the philosophy of nonsense. In a later book titled "Dr No", the main character is an expert on nothing.
If I could rate this book 8 stars I would since it's the most unique, nutty and engaging book he's written. Or at least in my world it is.
Whats your name?
Not Sidney.
OK then, what is it?
The point I'm making is that books he'd written after this come to mind and you realize the favorite characters from them were developed from those in this one. As an example, Everett inserts himself as a character who teaches the philosophy of nonsense. In a later book titled "Dr No", the main character is an expert on nothing.
If I could rate this book 8 stars I would since it's the most unique, nutty and engaging book he's written. Or at least in my world it is.
Whats your name?
Not Sidney.
OK then, what is it?
Read
October 23, 2022I read Percival Everett's I Am Not Sidney Poitier immediately after his Erasure and now the two novels have merged in my memory, becoming like one continuous story.
But the two novels have very separate set-ups with different protagonists of different ages and circumstances. If they continue to merge in my mind, it's because of a central theme in both: if you're black in the US today, you are two people, the one that others see and the one you know yourself to be. Your dilemma is which to actually become, the stereotype figure people expect you to be, complete with a certain way of speaking and certain behaviors, or a new and unique individual, free of all stereotypical traits, not hampered by the history of your ancestors—yet not trying to pass for white. I reckon you have to be very strong to not conform to the model laid down for you, but instead to be yourself as you really are rather than the person others lazily continue to see/not see in you.
The protagonist of Erasure deliberately gives in to the stereotype, and his inner self is wiped out completely.
The protagonist of I Am Not Sydney Poitier finds himself swept along by events into a similar erasure of his real self.
These two books really are so alike it's difficult to tell them apart!
And by making me say that, clever Percival Everett has more than made his point.
But the two novels have very separate set-ups with different protagonists of different ages and circumstances. If they continue to merge in my mind, it's because of a central theme in both: if you're black in the US today, you are two people, the one that others see and the one you know yourself to be. Your dilemma is which to actually become, the stereotype figure people expect you to be, complete with a certain way of speaking and certain behaviors, or a new and unique individual, free of all stereotypical traits, not hampered by the history of your ancestors—yet not trying to pass for white. I reckon you have to be very strong to not conform to the model laid down for you, but instead to be yourself as you really are rather than the person others lazily continue to see/not see in you.
The protagonist of Erasure deliberately gives in to the stereotype, and his inner self is wiped out completely.
The protagonist of I Am Not Sydney Poitier finds himself swept along by events into a similar erasure of his real self.
These two books really are so alike it's difficult to tell them apart!
And by making me say that, clever Percival Everett has more than made his point.
September 1, 2025
I have no idea what to say about this book, it's somewhere between brilliant and groundbreaking. Not Sidney Poitier becomes Sidney Poitier after trying and shedding all the personalities he thinks he is, til the real man finally evolves. Even then there's some questions about the finished product.
As Not Sidney makes his way through the world, he does so by experiencing the plots and characters from Poitier's most well known movies. That provided me with a lot of entertainment, especially Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and Lilies of the Field. There were dream sequences that left me cold, possibly scenes from lesser known movies that weren't familiar to me. Percival Everitt makes himself a character here too. And along the way, we get some brilliant observations about the state of civilization and American life.
It's a wild romp for sure.
As Not Sidney makes his way through the world, he does so by experiencing the plots and characters from Poitier's most well known movies. That provided me with a lot of entertainment, especially Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and Lilies of the Field. There were dream sequences that left me cold, possibly scenes from lesser known movies that weren't familiar to me. Percival Everitt makes himself a character here too. And along the way, we get some brilliant observations about the state of civilization and American life.
It's a wild romp for sure.
December 22, 2024
I picked up a copy of "Suder" years ago from a Barnes & Noble bargain book table, enjoyed it, and promptly drifted away from Percival Everett. Now, decades later, 2024 has been enriched by The Percival Everett Experience. "James" is one of my all-time favorite reads and "Trees," "Erasure," and "I Am Not Sidney Poitier" have all dazzled me with wit, insight, and humor.
The lead character's name is Not Sidney Poitier, something causing issues throughout his life. His mother invested heavily in Turner Broadcasting and when she dies Ted Turner becomes his guardian, with Jane Fonda hanging out. As Not Sidney grows up, incidentally looking more and more like Sidney Poitier, episodes similar to Sidney Poitier's movies are manifested. Not Sidney Poitier's identity is being forged by the projection of Sidney Poitier.
In another identity twist, Not Sidney Poitier finds himself taking a course at Morehouse College taught by... Percival Everett, who admits to Not Sydney that he is a fraud and is only teaching nonsense. Author Everett's imagination is something else.
The lead character's name is Not Sidney Poitier, something causing issues throughout his life. His mother invested heavily in Turner Broadcasting and when she dies Ted Turner becomes his guardian, with Jane Fonda hanging out. As Not Sidney grows up, incidentally looking more and more like Sidney Poitier, episodes similar to Sidney Poitier's movies are manifested. Not Sidney Poitier's identity is being forged by the projection of Sidney Poitier.
In another identity twist, Not Sidney Poitier finds himself taking a course at Morehouse College taught by... Percival Everett, who admits to Not Sydney that he is a fraud and is only teaching nonsense. Author Everett's imagination is something else.
April 10, 2025
I Am Not Sidney Poitier is almost farcical in its humor, starting with the joke of the title, an almost Abbott & Costello takeoff.
There’s nothing subtle about the book. It’s completely bonkers. First the name joke, then the circumstances of being “raised” by Ted Turner, an episode of driving while black in Peckerwood, GA which leads to a prison farm. It goes on with one more implausible scene after another. Percival Everett himself appears as a character, a professor at Morehouse College. Everett uses Sidney Poitier’s movies as inspiration for various scenes in the book. I’ve only seen a few and mostly decades ago, but I picked up on In the Heat of the Night, Lilies of the Field, The Defiant Ones and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
I can’t say this totally worked for me. For every flash of wit and brilliance, there were other stretches of dullness. The dream sequences specifically fell flat for me. Although some of what I perceived as dull might have been that it just went over my head. I’m definitely not the intended audience. But I did spend a lot of time chuckling and shaking my head at the absurdity of it all. Everett is a master of word play.
I listened to this and Amir Abdullah was a fine narrator. But this might have been a book better read than listened to, in order to pick up all the nuances.
There’s nothing subtle about the book. It’s completely bonkers. First the name joke, then the circumstances of being “raised” by Ted Turner, an episode of driving while black in Peckerwood, GA which leads to a prison farm. It goes on with one more implausible scene after another. Percival Everett himself appears as a character, a professor at Morehouse College. Everett uses Sidney Poitier’s movies as inspiration for various scenes in the book. I’ve only seen a few and mostly decades ago, but I picked up on In the Heat of the Night, Lilies of the Field, The Defiant Ones and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
I can’t say this totally worked for me. For every flash of wit and brilliance, there were other stretches of dullness. The dream sequences specifically fell flat for me. Although some of what I perceived as dull might have been that it just went over my head. I’m definitely not the intended audience. But I did spend a lot of time chuckling and shaking my head at the absurdity of it all. Everett is a master of word play.
I listened to this and Amir Abdullah was a fine narrator. But this might have been a book better read than listened to, in order to pick up all the nuances.
January 2, 2023
This was the funniest of the (first) three novels of Percival Everett that I've read, understanding that "funny" is a subjective thing. There were times when I laughed out loud, if an unexpected snort of mirth counts as that. But I was pretty much entertained throughout.
Everett creates this wonderful, eponymous character: Not Sidney Poitier. Yes, that's his name. He actually looks like Sidney Poitier, but he's not. So he's not and he's Not. It's a continuing gag in the telling, the author much taken with the idea; and, really, I never tired of it. Indeed, if the author hits on some clever idea, he insists on re-using it. Like the superfluous nature of the question: "May I ask you a question?" I never tired of that, either.
Everett's observant nature of the way we talk gives me a wry smile (when I'm not unexpectedly snorting). And so quick, you could almost miss it. Here:
"What you starin' at, li'l motherfucker," the "li'l motherfucker" saving him from ending a sentence with a preposition.
The author offers the usual disclaimer that all characters are fictitious, etc., etc., even while admitting that some characters have familiar names. There's, for example, Ted Turner and Jane Fonda. He subtly skewers Jane, but Ted is a brilliant creation. So too is a character named Percival Everett, a university professor of Nonsense. I sat up a little straighter, in anticipation, every time Turner and Everett came on stage.
And Sidney Poitier is and is not (Not) a character. So I wondered if Not Sidney was going to build a chapel. All I'll say is that Everett does not disappoint.
It was suggested by Goodreads friend Betsy Robinson that I read Everett's Erasure before this one. This isn't a sequel to Erasure but, indeed, the suggested order helps, if only to appreciate a little joke. So, thank you, Betsy!
Everett creates this wonderful, eponymous character: Not Sidney Poitier. Yes, that's his name. He actually looks like Sidney Poitier, but he's not. So he's not and he's Not. It's a continuing gag in the telling, the author much taken with the idea; and, really, I never tired of it. Indeed, if the author hits on some clever idea, he insists on re-using it. Like the superfluous nature of the question: "May I ask you a question?" I never tired of that, either.
Everett's observant nature of the way we talk gives me a wry smile (when I'm not unexpectedly snorting). And so quick, you could almost miss it. Here:
"What you starin' at, li'l motherfucker," the "li'l motherfucker" saving him from ending a sentence with a preposition.
The author offers the usual disclaimer that all characters are fictitious, etc., etc., even while admitting that some characters have familiar names. There's, for example, Ted Turner and Jane Fonda. He subtly skewers Jane, but Ted is a brilliant creation. So too is a character named Percival Everett, a university professor of Nonsense. I sat up a little straighter, in anticipation, every time Turner and Everett came on stage.
And Sidney Poitier is and is not (Not) a character. So I wondered if Not Sidney was going to build a chapel. All I'll say is that Everett does not disappoint.
It was suggested by Goodreads friend Betsy Robinson that I read Everett's Erasure before this one. This isn't a sequel to Erasure but, indeed, the suggested order helps, if only to appreciate a little joke. So, thank you, Betsy!
January 24, 2016
Part of this is a great comedic novel, which blends satire (more on that in a minute), absurdism (the dialog between Everett's vision of Ted Turner and Everett's parody of himself are hilarious examples of how much comedic mileage can be gotten out of two bizarre characters acting bizarre around each other), and pop culture riffs (true to the title, you get parodies of at least three Sidney Poitier movies in this book - I picked up on Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Lilies of the Field and, of course, In the Heat of the Night, and wouldn't be surprised if there were a couple more I'd missed), part of it is a novel whose loose but coherent structure is liberating for me as a writer, and part of it is a bomb raid on American racism. Basically a testament to how effective the no fucks given approach can be if it's applied to targets that are actually worth wrecking and not simply used to get attention.
Read it, read Erasure, read as much Percival Everett as you can get your hands on. Why this guy isn't up for greatest living novelist status is beyond me.
Read it, read Erasure, read as much Percival Everett as you can get your hands on. Why this guy isn't up for greatest living novelist status is beyond me.
October 18, 2023
I picked up the novel I Am Not Sidney Poitier (2009) by Percival Everett 1) because I thought his novel The Trees was amazing, electric, shocking, a disturbingly hilarious dark satire about lynching in America, and 2) I thought this title was very funny, a kind of take on Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First” stand-up comedy routine. And Everitt does get a lot of mileage from his joke. This book is comedy; some things that made me laugh and smile, but it feels kind of invented as we go, so I am not sure I can say I loved it. There are a lot of crazy people in it, that’s for sure. I guess maybe I am comparing it to his inspired work, The Trees, but for much of the book I thought it was 2-3 stars, maybe finally 3.5, rounded up because of actual Poitier film refs and the fact that I do not actually get sick of the title joke..
I Am: Not Sidney (this is his given name) Poitier, our main character realizes, but also, I Am Not Sidney Poitier (he’s not the actor Sydney Poitier). Two truths, only one of them self-evident: “I Am Not Sidney Poitier.” “I know you aren’t. So who are you?” and so on. Not Sidney sometimes uses his first name (Not) and sometimes (such as Mary Ann) uses his first and middle names, (as in Not Sidney). And he looks increasingly like Sidney Poitier, but his mother is no longer around as he grows up to clarify on that issue. Is that explanation enough to kill the joke for ya?! But it made me smile throughout. In truth it’s mostly a one-joke book, in many ways.
But before Not Sydney’s mother (spoiler) dies, she took several thousand dollars from an insurance settlement and invested it in a fledgling media outfit run by a guy named Ted Turner who, after her death, lets him stay in his house. There’s a daughter there, too, Wanda Fonda, ha ha. But Not Sidney grows up (and this is a kind of coming-of-age story) filthy rich. He has an affair with a history teacher, who flunks him. When he complains about it to the principal, they don’t believe him. He gets beat up because of his name, mostly (like that Shel Silverstein song, “A Boy Named Sue”?). He decides to leave town.
He gets money for a car and leaves Atlanta--once you leave Atlanta, you are a black man in GEORGIA, he is told--and ends up for a time jailed in Peckerwood, a small town where it is apparently illegal to be black. He has a surreal dream about slavery where a white woman (but with that absurd drop of black blood) is being auctioned off. That kind of thing passes for Everitt as absurdist humor, of a kind. People that claim the purity of their blood who are just plain stupid. When he escapes from jail he is chained to a white racist kid, but when he gets loose from him he decides when he returns to Atlanta to attend to (historically black) Morehouse College, where he takes a class on Nonsense, taught by--oh!--a Professor Everett. . . huh? auto-fiction? (Though Everett teaches at USC).
The two craziest (positive crazy--there’s a lot of negative crazy once you get outside Atlanta) characters in this novel are Everett and Ted Turner, who get along just fine.
Some white rural small town southerners take a (satirical) hit in this book, just as Everett’s The Trees (2021) skewers old time Southern racism with a heavy dose of Black humor. But it also satirizes middle-class Morehouse College parents who don’t like the fact that Not Sydney is “too dark,” and then forgive this fact when they find he has inherited millions and has invested in a media company.
The plot, such as it is, rambles, but I do like the references in it to various Poitier films, including In the Heat of the Night: “They call me Mr. Tibbs.” (“they call me Sydny Poitier, but I’m not). So Not Sydney, like Poitier’s Mr. Tibbs, actually works with a southern white sheriff to solve a crime, like In The Heat of the Night. There’s a few great laughs in the book!
I Am: Not Sidney (this is his given name) Poitier, our main character realizes, but also, I Am Not Sidney Poitier (he’s not the actor Sydney Poitier). Two truths, only one of them self-evident: “I Am Not Sidney Poitier.” “I know you aren’t. So who are you?” and so on. Not Sidney sometimes uses his first name (Not) and sometimes (such as Mary Ann) uses his first and middle names, (as in Not Sidney). And he looks increasingly like Sidney Poitier, but his mother is no longer around as he grows up to clarify on that issue. Is that explanation enough to kill the joke for ya?! But it made me smile throughout. In truth it’s mostly a one-joke book, in many ways.
But before Not Sydney’s mother (spoiler) dies, she took several thousand dollars from an insurance settlement and invested it in a fledgling media outfit run by a guy named Ted Turner who, after her death, lets him stay in his house. There’s a daughter there, too, Wanda Fonda, ha ha. But Not Sidney grows up (and this is a kind of coming-of-age story) filthy rich. He has an affair with a history teacher, who flunks him. When he complains about it to the principal, they don’t believe him. He gets beat up because of his name, mostly (like that Shel Silverstein song, “A Boy Named Sue”?). He decides to leave town.
He gets money for a car and leaves Atlanta--once you leave Atlanta, you are a black man in GEORGIA, he is told--and ends up for a time jailed in Peckerwood, a small town where it is apparently illegal to be black. He has a surreal dream about slavery where a white woman (but with that absurd drop of black blood) is being auctioned off. That kind of thing passes for Everitt as absurdist humor, of a kind. People that claim the purity of their blood who are just plain stupid. When he escapes from jail he is chained to a white racist kid, but when he gets loose from him he decides when he returns to Atlanta to attend to (historically black) Morehouse College, where he takes a class on Nonsense, taught by--oh!--a Professor Everett. . . huh? auto-fiction? (Though Everett teaches at USC).
The two craziest (positive crazy--there’s a lot of negative crazy once you get outside Atlanta) characters in this novel are Everett and Ted Turner, who get along just fine.
Some white rural small town southerners take a (satirical) hit in this book, just as Everett’s The Trees (2021) skewers old time Southern racism with a heavy dose of Black humor. But it also satirizes middle-class Morehouse College parents who don’t like the fact that Not Sydney is “too dark,” and then forgive this fact when they find he has inherited millions and has invested in a media company.
The plot, such as it is, rambles, but I do like the references in it to various Poitier films, including In the Heat of the Night: “They call me Mr. Tibbs.” (“they call me Sydny Poitier, but I’m not). So Not Sydney, like Poitier’s Mr. Tibbs, actually works with a southern white sheriff to solve a crime, like In The Heat of the Night. There’s a few great laughs in the book!
Read
May 2, 2023Everett's work is really remarkable. This is all about a man who looks like, but is not, Sidney Poitier, and is thus called Not Sidney Poitier, navigating life as a Black man in the US. Very much not the stereotyped narrative in any respect: in fact, Not Sidney slides through a series of situations, in dreams or reality, that are the set ups of Sidney Poitier films, and never fails to negotiate them with infinitely less grace, dignity or success. It is of course about the experience of being Black in the US, from a lot of angles, and the struggle to find an identity that isn't defined for you by other people (white or Black). Weirdly, it also stars a hilarious version of Ted Turner and an equally funny, er, Percival Everett, in possibly the first ever authorial self-insert in a novel that isn't shit.
Everett is clearly a genius (albeit not at plots but this isn't about plot) and I think I need Erasure now.
Everett is clearly a genius (albeit not at plots but this isn't about plot) and I think I need Erasure now.
January 27, 2022
The last time I read an allegedly-hilarious novel by a well-known college professor, I swore it would be the last time I read an allegedly-hilarious novel by a well-known college professor. This was Jane Smiley's Moo, a book so flat, so boring, that I not only failed to laugh or even crack a grin, but was unable to identify which parts of it were supposed to be funny.
Robin's review made me break my promise to myself, and how glad I am! Everett is a deft and imaginative writer, a man who can disparage a respected institution and offer a solution within a single paragraph:
Some sexual content behind the spoiler:
I save my five-star ratings for books of the heart rather than books of the mind. But on the shelf of books to stimulate your thinking, this one is top-shelf. Plus, it's damn funny. I will be reading more by this author.
Robin's review made me break my promise to myself, and how glad I am! Everett is a deft and imaginative writer, a man who can disparage a respected institution and offer a solution within a single paragraph:
"Why should I remain in college?"This book's shambolic plot follows a young man through his school years, highlighting the run-ins between his crazy mama and his elementary school teachers and ending with the conversation shown above, more or less. (Others have pointed out that many scenes mirror films from Sidney Poitier's career, with which I am unfortunately unfamiliar.) Because the narrator is young and black, his history includes some run-ins with law enforcement, some difficult-to-explain celebrity encounters but, above all, stark illustrations of the challenges imposed by racism. These reactions to race are not always overt, or even negative. What Everett has done brilliantly with the creation of Not Sidney Portier (his actual name) was to invent a foil to illustrate how pervasive racism is, and how snap judgements feel to the person receiving them.
"You've got me," he said without a pause.
"That's the best you can do?" I said.
"How much money do you have?"
"More than I know what to do with," I said, honestly.
Everett sighed. I could hear him lighting his cigar. "I suppose you could remain in school for the sex. I here there's a lot of it. Or not."
"What about an education?"
"Hell, you can read. You know where the library is."
Some sexual content behind the spoiler:
I save my five-star ratings for books of the heart rather than books of the mind. But on the shelf of books to stimulate your thinking, this one is top-shelf. Plus, it's damn funny. I will be reading more by this author.
July 3, 2022
CRITIQUE:
[By a Reader Who is
Not Marvin Graye]
The Premise of Not Sidney Poitier
The protagonist and first person narrator of this novel is a young, even more handsome and distinguished version of the black actor, Sidney Poitier. Most people who meet him comment on the resemblance. To avoid confusion, his mother named him Not Sidney Poitier, and he goes by the first name, Not Sidney, which nevertheless results in some comically absurd discussions.
When his mother died, he inherited an enormous amount of wealth that had resulted from her investment in the Turner Communications Group, the parent company of CNN, when it was owned by Ted Turner. He invests some of his funds in a cable network called Negro Entertainment Television (NET), which proves to be equally successful.
The premise of the novel is how Not Sidney fares in a world in which he is far wealthier than most middle class white people, even millionaires. White people can't automatically assume that this black man lives in poverty and squalour. He's richer than they are.
Not Bad Influences
Percival Everett excels in both fluid, lucid prose, and convincing dialogue.
As if this isn't enough, he also has a wicked sense of humour, especially when it comes to sexual relations (of the Bill Clinton variety) and social status.
To list Everett's apparent influences is not to detract from the merit of his own achievements. They include both novels and films, which Everett parodies with distinction: Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy", Mark Twain, Richard Brautigan, Kurt Vonnegut, John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces", Stanley Kramer's "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "No Way Out", Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles", and "National Lampoon's Animal House". These are all worthy influences.
[The handsome Professor Percival Everett - source: https://therumpus.net/2015/10/06/half...]
Let Your Madness Run with Mine
Each chapter is a brief cartoon-like episode set in a geographically or socially distinct environment that Everett quickly masters: school, college (where Not Sidney is taught Philosophy of Nonsense by Professor Percival Everett, who admits to being "a fraud, a fake, a sham, a charlatan, a deceiver, a pretender, a crook"), prison, Ted Turner's mansion, Atlanta, Alabama, Washington DC, San Francisco, and Hollywood. These episodes grant him the opportunity to dissect and skewer class, cultural and racial differences and prejudices in America (which are sometimes denied to exist).
Yet, farcical, nonsensical and incisive as Everett's writing is, it is almost always benign, if a little mad. You never question or dislike the author, the narrator or the protagonist. You don't feel that Not Sidney has overreacted to his plight, no matter how degrading it might be. Not Sidney is a voice of black reason and tolerance in an unreasonable white and intolerant world.
[Sidney Poitier featured in "No Way Out"]
No Way In, No Way Out
Not Sidney is usually as charming, presentable and well-mannered as Sidney Poitier in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner".
However, his experience of a Thanksgiving Dinner hosted by his coffee-coloured girlfriend's family pushes him to the limit. Her parents disdain people blacker than themselves, and the temptation to expose their hypocrisy proves irresistible.
Although Not Sidney's mother brought him up as an atheist, he has more grace and distinction than any of the conservative white or coffee-coloured Christian hypocrites around him.
If Not Sidney can find no way in and no way out, he must remain content with his own identity, even if everybody confuses him with somebody else. He must avoid stereotypes, especially of black men. He must be the solution to his own problem. He is not others' perception of himself. As Professor Everett advises him, he must be himself, because everybody else is taken.
Still, no matter how bad Not Sidney's treatment is, it is never as bad as the experience of real life black Americans in the era of Trump, pre-guillotine departure.
Black Comedy
Despite the gravity of these issues, this excellent comic novel (a true black comedy) is an opportunity for readers to let Not Sidney's (and Everett's) madness run with theirs. And no time is better than now.
SOUNDTRACK:
[By a Reader Who is
Not Marvin Graye]
The Premise of Not Sidney Poitier
The protagonist and first person narrator of this novel is a young, even more handsome and distinguished version of the black actor, Sidney Poitier. Most people who meet him comment on the resemblance. To avoid confusion, his mother named him Not Sidney Poitier, and he goes by the first name, Not Sidney, which nevertheless results in some comically absurd discussions.
When his mother died, he inherited an enormous amount of wealth that had resulted from her investment in the Turner Communications Group, the parent company of CNN, when it was owned by Ted Turner. He invests some of his funds in a cable network called Negro Entertainment Television (NET), which proves to be equally successful.
The premise of the novel is how Not Sidney fares in a world in which he is far wealthier than most middle class white people, even millionaires. White people can't automatically assume that this black man lives in poverty and squalour. He's richer than they are.
Not Bad Influences
Percival Everett excels in both fluid, lucid prose, and convincing dialogue.
As if this isn't enough, he also has a wicked sense of humour, especially when it comes to sexual relations (of the Bill Clinton variety) and social status.
To list Everett's apparent influences is not to detract from the merit of his own achievements. They include both novels and films, which Everett parodies with distinction: Laurence Sterne's "Tristram Shandy", Mark Twain, Richard Brautigan, Kurt Vonnegut, John Kennedy Toole's "A Confederacy of Dunces", Stanley Kramer's "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner", Joseph L. Mankiewicz's "No Way Out", Mel Brooks' "Blazing Saddles", and "National Lampoon's Animal House". These are all worthy influences.
[The handsome Professor Percival Everett - source: https://therumpus.net/2015/10/06/half...]
Let Your Madness Run with Mine
Each chapter is a brief cartoon-like episode set in a geographically or socially distinct environment that Everett quickly masters: school, college (where Not Sidney is taught Philosophy of Nonsense by Professor Percival Everett, who admits to being "a fraud, a fake, a sham, a charlatan, a deceiver, a pretender, a crook"), prison, Ted Turner's mansion, Atlanta, Alabama, Washington DC, San Francisco, and Hollywood. These episodes grant him the opportunity to dissect and skewer class, cultural and racial differences and prejudices in America (which are sometimes denied to exist).
Yet, farcical, nonsensical and incisive as Everett's writing is, it is almost always benign, if a little mad. You never question or dislike the author, the narrator or the protagonist. You don't feel that Not Sidney has overreacted to his plight, no matter how degrading it might be. Not Sidney is a voice of black reason and tolerance in an unreasonable white and intolerant world.
[Sidney Poitier featured in "No Way Out"]
No Way In, No Way Out
Not Sidney is usually as charming, presentable and well-mannered as Sidney Poitier in "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner".
However, his experience of a Thanksgiving Dinner hosted by his coffee-coloured girlfriend's family pushes him to the limit. Her parents disdain people blacker than themselves, and the temptation to expose their hypocrisy proves irresistible.
Although Not Sidney's mother brought him up as an atheist, he has more grace and distinction than any of the conservative white or coffee-coloured Christian hypocrites around him.
If Not Sidney can find no way in and no way out, he must remain content with his own identity, even if everybody confuses him with somebody else. He must avoid stereotypes, especially of black men. He must be the solution to his own problem. He is not others' perception of himself. As Professor Everett advises him, he must be himself, because everybody else is taken.
Still, no matter how bad Not Sidney's treatment is, it is never as bad as the experience of real life black Americans in the era of Trump, pre-guillotine departure.
Black Comedy
Despite the gravity of these issues, this excellent comic novel (a true black comedy) is an opportunity for readers to let Not Sidney's (and Everett's) madness run with theirs. And no time is better than now.
SOUNDTRACK:
May 29, 2023
Thank God for Percival Everett. I've been reading a few books and found myself left with a truly irritating novel and (praise be) this.
I like a lot of people first encountered Mr Everett's unique style with The Trees. I read Suder shortly after and this is my third (I have Erasure on my TBR pile). So yet another that doesn't disappoint.
Not Sidney Poitier really is Not Sidney Poitier (his first names are Not Sidney). Not Sidney is a young black man whose mother has died leaving him not quite high and dry - with a huge fortune and a home with Ted Turner (yes the TV tycoon).
Not Sidney's life becomes more difficult at school and he then decides to throw his considerable fortune at whatever difficulty he encounters - first being the ability to buy himself into college.
That is the first of his adventures (where he encounters Professor Percival Everett). His next adventures land him in one scary scenario after another - the sort of thing that would befall any young black man driving a crappy car across the States.
This is so good. It has the same sort of slapstick style of comedy found in The Trees and Suder which jars so brilliantly with the terrifying situations Not Sidney finds himself in.
Percival Everett has the ability to have me up in my proverbial arms about discrimination then the next minute will send it, the establishment or himself up leaving me helpless with laughter.
All I can say is bring on Erasure ... and then the next one and the next one.
I like a lot of people first encountered Mr Everett's unique style with The Trees. I read Suder shortly after and this is my third (I have Erasure on my TBR pile). So yet another that doesn't disappoint.
Not Sidney Poitier really is Not Sidney Poitier (his first names are Not Sidney). Not Sidney is a young black man whose mother has died leaving him not quite high and dry - with a huge fortune and a home with Ted Turner (yes the TV tycoon).
Not Sidney's life becomes more difficult at school and he then decides to throw his considerable fortune at whatever difficulty he encounters - first being the ability to buy himself into college.
That is the first of his adventures (where he encounters Professor Percival Everett). His next adventures land him in one scary scenario after another - the sort of thing that would befall any young black man driving a crappy car across the States.
This is so good. It has the same sort of slapstick style of comedy found in The Trees and Suder which jars so brilliantly with the terrifying situations Not Sidney finds himself in.
Percival Everett has the ability to have me up in my proverbial arms about discrimination then the next minute will send it, the establishment or himself up leaving me helpless with laughter.
All I can say is bring on Erasure ... and then the next one and the next one.
September 1, 2024
Made me laugh out loud!
July 6, 2024
A delightful, surprising, and spectacularly meta novel about the boy who is named (yes) "Not Sidney Poitier," and raised by (wait for it) Ted Turner, and counts among his professors when he goes to college. . .Percival Everett. I dove in after reading Everett's magnificent JAMES and then saw this earlier tale among the New York Times list of the funniest novels published in the 21st century.
July 21, 2024
Dramatization of the philosophy of nonsense.
Read the final 150 pages on the porch on a long, lazy, still, temperate, and toward evening slightly inebriated mid-July Saturday. Once Not Sidney goes to college it takes off and deepens, with the introduction of Percival Everett the nonsensical professor and a girlfriend from a wealthy, conservative, "coffee with cream" family. The scenes at their home in DC, the racism and opportunism toward the darker, richer Not Sidney, the Thanksgiving dinner, all seemed enough to base a great novel around, like an all-black version of Get Out. The professor's -- and the novel's -- nonsense making sense reductio ad absurdum-wise regarding for example race.
But I think maybe I don't respond so well to Everett's cartoonish depictions of rednecks and hillbillies. The second section when he's arrested in Alabama for being black and sentenced to a work camp, and then escapes chained to a redneck, all that had me wondering if I was going to be able to read this. I watched a scene on YouTube of Sidney Poitier saying "they call me Mr. Tibbs" that's described in the book and echoed later, modified to "they call me Mr. Poitier," and you can see the sort of '60s depiction of deep-country cops that must have made an impression on Everett's imagination.
Dream sequences throughout always had me semi-accelerating my reading pace since they seemed long and unrelated to the text -- after I finished I did some googling and learned that the book is filled with references to Sidney Poitier movies, none of which I've seen in the modern era (although I do remember watching something with him on TV when I was kid -- and my mom talking about him the way she now talks about Idris Elba). I'm sure if you're familiar with Poitier's films the dream sequences and the chapter structuring seem like more than nonsense, but for me it seemed unnecessary, excessive, a meta/referential level that sorta confounds what's otherwise an enjoyable satirical coming-of-age novel about an orphaned intelligent handsome young black man who happens to have a ton of $$$ and somehow lives with Ted Turner, who's always fun in this, always interjecting little random observational questions that come to mind.
Amusing throughout with a few actual LOLs. Definitely not put off by this -- will keep reading Everett. I admire the clear, straightforward dramatization that steadies his satirical spirit and imagination, and the generally lighthearted but then sometimes suddenly sneakily intense illustrations of racial and class-related complexities. Based on only two of his novels (I've so far only otherwise read Telephone), he also seems to layer on a theoretical level that doesn't do much to help what's otherwise a strong enjoyable narrative. On to Dr. No, Percival Everett by Virgil Russell, and then Erasure, and then I'm sure I'll have a better idea.
Read the final 150 pages on the porch on a long, lazy, still, temperate, and toward evening slightly inebriated mid-July Saturday. Once Not Sidney goes to college it takes off and deepens, with the introduction of Percival Everett the nonsensical professor and a girlfriend from a wealthy, conservative, "coffee with cream" family. The scenes at their home in DC, the racism and opportunism toward the darker, richer Not Sidney, the Thanksgiving dinner, all seemed enough to base a great novel around, like an all-black version of Get Out. The professor's -- and the novel's -- nonsense making sense reductio ad absurdum-wise regarding for example race.
But I think maybe I don't respond so well to Everett's cartoonish depictions of rednecks and hillbillies. The second section when he's arrested in Alabama for being black and sentenced to a work camp, and then escapes chained to a redneck, all that had me wondering if I was going to be able to read this. I watched a scene on YouTube of Sidney Poitier saying "they call me Mr. Tibbs" that's described in the book and echoed later, modified to "they call me Mr. Poitier," and you can see the sort of '60s depiction of deep-country cops that must have made an impression on Everett's imagination.
Dream sequences throughout always had me semi-accelerating my reading pace since they seemed long and unrelated to the text -- after I finished I did some googling and learned that the book is filled with references to Sidney Poitier movies, none of which I've seen in the modern era (although I do remember watching something with him on TV when I was kid -- and my mom talking about him the way she now talks about Idris Elba). I'm sure if you're familiar with Poitier's films the dream sequences and the chapter structuring seem like more than nonsense, but for me it seemed unnecessary, excessive, a meta/referential level that sorta confounds what's otherwise an enjoyable satirical coming-of-age novel about an orphaned intelligent handsome young black man who happens to have a ton of $$$ and somehow lives with Ted Turner, who's always fun in this, always interjecting little random observational questions that come to mind.
Amusing throughout with a few actual LOLs. Definitely not put off by this -- will keep reading Everett. I admire the clear, straightforward dramatization that steadies his satirical spirit and imagination, and the generally lighthearted but then sometimes suddenly sneakily intense illustrations of racial and class-related complexities. Based on only two of his novels (I've so far only otherwise read Telephone), he also seems to layer on a theoretical level that doesn't do much to help what's otherwise a strong enjoyable narrative. On to Dr. No, Percival Everett by Virgil Russell, and then Erasure, and then I'm sure I'll have a better idea.
October 2, 2012
It's unfortunate that a lot of people read this book thinking it’s going to be a "funny" book. It's not. It's satire. A biting satire on race that could make many a reader squirm. Yes, there is a running joke on “I am not Sidney Poitier and I am Not Sidney Poitier” and you groan every time you see it coming. But even that joke made a statement on individuality and race.
Percival Everett, born in 1956, undoubtedly remembers Sidney Poitier’s movies being beamed into white America’s living rooms in the 1960s and that Poitier was much loved. In the 1960s and sadly for years afterward, it was not uncommon to hear, as one of the characters in the book says – you can’t tell one black from another, they all look alike. Not Sidney Poitier is not a character he is a symbol of racist white America’s perception of blacks, especially in context of the era of Poitier’s award-winning work.
Literally, people who meet Not Sidney are unable to learn or misunderstand his name, but metaphorically they are unable to understand what he symbolizes. Like the real Sidney Poitier to some characters this was a black person with money, to others a black person who was well-educated. His mother invested in Ted Turner’s media company before it became successful and when she died, Not Sidney was rich and became Turner’s ward. Turner, of course, symbolizes the media’s attitude toward the real Sidney Poitier. Turner doesn’t know what to do with Not Sidney. He likes Not Sidney, but he doesn’t relate to him. He provides for him, but doesn’t live with him. But Turner is loyal, after all Not Sidney has money.
Elements of Poitier’s movies are splattered everywhere in these pages. I do think being familiar with Poitier’s movies helps the reader enjoy the book. Otherwise, you’re left with an episodic book that doesn’t make sense.
On the surface this looks like a light read, but in actuality this is a complex book that is worthy of serious discussion. Great book for the right readers.
Percival Everett, born in 1956, undoubtedly remembers Sidney Poitier’s movies being beamed into white America’s living rooms in the 1960s and that Poitier was much loved. In the 1960s and sadly for years afterward, it was not uncommon to hear, as one of the characters in the book says – you can’t tell one black from another, they all look alike. Not Sidney Poitier is not a character he is a symbol of racist white America’s perception of blacks, especially in context of the era of Poitier’s award-winning work.
Literally, people who meet Not Sidney are unable to learn or misunderstand his name, but metaphorically they are unable to understand what he symbolizes. Like the real Sidney Poitier to some characters this was a black person with money, to others a black person who was well-educated. His mother invested in Ted Turner’s media company before it became successful and when she died, Not Sidney was rich and became Turner’s ward. Turner, of course, symbolizes the media’s attitude toward the real Sidney Poitier. Turner doesn’t know what to do with Not Sidney. He likes Not Sidney, but he doesn’t relate to him. He provides for him, but doesn’t live with him. But Turner is loyal, after all Not Sidney has money.
Elements of Poitier’s movies are splattered everywhere in these pages. I do think being familiar with Poitier’s movies helps the reader enjoy the book. Otherwise, you’re left with an episodic book that doesn’t make sense.
On the surface this looks like a light read, but in actuality this is a complex book that is worthy of serious discussion. Great book for the right readers.
May 12, 2018
Not Sidney Poitier is orphaned as a boy, but thanks to his mother's wise investment, he is wealthy. He is taken in by Ted Turner, but mostly raises himself. Not Sidney goes on to have many experiences in life that deal with social class and race.
A humorous and weird novel. This satirical book has quirky characters and hilarious dialogue. If you're familiar with Sidney Poitier's films, you'll notice that Not Sidney's life parodies them, especially Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Defiant Ones, In the Heat of the Night, and Lilies of the Field.
A humorous and weird novel. This satirical book has quirky characters and hilarious dialogue. If you're familiar with Sidney Poitier's films, you'll notice that Not Sidney's life parodies them, especially Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, The Defiant Ones, In the Heat of the Night, and Lilies of the Field.
June 2, 2025
Well, then, who are you?
I am Not Sidney Poitier.
Right, but what’s your name?
Not Sidney Poitier.
Damn it, just tell me!
I just did.
*Proceeds with beatdown*
Everett gets surprising mileage from this gag, maybe even more than Abbott and Costello. But as expected from the modern master, it goes a little deeper with meaning.
Our boy owes his odd name to an even odder mother. But she makes up for a lifetime of confusion (and bullying) with a lifetime of riches when she invests in the Turner Broadcast System. When she passes on, none other than Ted Turner himself takes Not Sidney as his ward.
What happens from there is nothing short of an absurd, madcap, hilarious romp, as thoroughly snarky and intelligent as anything Kurt Vonnegut Jr..
• Not Sidney learns how to “Fesmerize,” using some whacked-out, old-time procedure invented by some obscure philosopher. It involves staring at a subject until they do whatever you want. And if the Jedi mind trick doesn’t work, the subject beats the crap out of you. Or they do whatever you want. Dice roll.
• Not Sidney lives the adventures of his not-namesake:
o He gets arrested in rural Georgia for the crime of being black. He escapes the chain gang with some crazy redneck using only his wits. And a chisel.
o He helps solve his own murder, also in the rural South, with a burnt-out sheriff.
o He pledges a fraternity at Morehouse College, and fails to get the education he might have otherwise earned.
o He helps some weird bunch of nuns build a church.
• Not Sidney searches for his mother’s headstone, just to see what it says – if anything.
• “Real” people show up: Ted Turner, Jane Fonda, pre-prison Bill Cosby…and I can’t tell if he’s making it all up.
o And how didn’t he get sued? Maybe it WAS all accurate. Humph.
It’s far more lighthearted than previous works, but no less sharp and brilliant. I laughed out loud multiple times, but here’s the problem: the jokes are impossible to explain. “Uh, well, Not Sidney says to some lady…” Blank stares. You had to be there…reading it. But all the characters are funny enough just from the descriptions and backstory, and especially the dialogue.
And the book proved yet again what an uncultured, uncouth, knuckle-dragging troglodyte I am. I’ve seen Uptown Saturday Night and Let’s Do It Again, and maybe A Raisin in the Sun (but I might be thinking about the book). But I had to seek IMDB for help. I suck.
One of the funniest, most thoughtful books I’ve read in a while.
I am Not Sidney Poitier.
Right, but what’s your name?
Not Sidney Poitier.
Damn it, just tell me!
I just did.
*Proceeds with beatdown*
Everett gets surprising mileage from this gag, maybe even more than Abbott and Costello. But as expected from the modern master, it goes a little deeper with meaning.
Our boy owes his odd name to an even odder mother. But she makes up for a lifetime of confusion (and bullying) with a lifetime of riches when she invests in the Turner Broadcast System. When she passes on, none other than Ted Turner himself takes Not Sidney as his ward.
What happens from there is nothing short of an absurd, madcap, hilarious romp, as thoroughly snarky and intelligent as anything Kurt Vonnegut Jr..
• Not Sidney learns how to “Fesmerize,” using some whacked-out, old-time procedure invented by some obscure philosopher. It involves staring at a subject until they do whatever you want. And if the Jedi mind trick doesn’t work, the subject beats the crap out of you. Or they do whatever you want. Dice roll.
• Not Sidney lives the adventures of his not-namesake:
o He gets arrested in rural Georgia for the crime of being black. He escapes the chain gang with some crazy redneck using only his wits. And a chisel.
o He helps solve his own murder, also in the rural South, with a burnt-out sheriff.
o He pledges a fraternity at Morehouse College, and fails to get the education he might have otherwise earned.
o He helps some weird bunch of nuns build a church.
• Not Sidney searches for his mother’s headstone, just to see what it says – if anything.
• “Real” people show up: Ted Turner, Jane Fonda, pre-prison Bill Cosby…and I can’t tell if he’s making it all up.
o And how didn’t he get sued? Maybe it WAS all accurate. Humph.
It’s far more lighthearted than previous works, but no less sharp and brilliant. I laughed out loud multiple times, but here’s the problem: the jokes are impossible to explain. “Uh, well, Not Sidney says to some lady…” Blank stares. You had to be there…reading it. But all the characters are funny enough just from the descriptions and backstory, and especially the dialogue.
And the book proved yet again what an uncultured, uncouth, knuckle-dragging troglodyte I am. I’ve seen Uptown Saturday Night and Let’s Do It Again, and maybe A Raisin in the Sun (but I might be thinking about the book). But I had to seek IMDB for help. I suck.
One of the funniest, most thoughtful books I’ve read in a while.
January 12, 2024
Percival Everett is quite unlike anyone else. Just like the university course in this novel given by a professor named Percival Everett, this book is nonsense. A black man who looks like Sidney Poitier is named Not Sidney Poitier, which leads to some absurdist conversations. Not Sidney is rich as Croesus, or rather, as rich as Ted Turner of CNN fame, which allows him to do pretty much whatever he wants. But what does he want?
As with all Percival Everett books, this is worth reading just to see where his mind is going...we can all see his mind is going, but if you want to know where, check this out.
And please. Go see the film American Fiction. It is the film version of Erasure. I am looking forward to seeing it next week.
As with all Percival Everett books, this is worth reading just to see where his mind is going...we can all see his mind is going, but if you want to know where, check this out.
And please. Go see the film American Fiction. It is the film version of Erasure. I am looking forward to seeing it next week.
August 23, 2025
Clever, absurd, and funny. Probably in that order.
March 29, 2024
Percival Everett is having a bit of fun with the reader in this book, but then, he always is, to some extent - but somewhat more so in I Am Not Sidney Poitier. PE's creation, Ted Turner, who the author alleges is Not Ted Turner, is brilliant and fun, as is his character Percival Everett, Professor of Nonsense.
This is a fun book, with many good comic turns, though on the whole, I enjoyed Erasure more. But it's close.
This is a fun book, with many good comic turns, though on the whole, I enjoyed Erasure more. But it's close.
May 6, 2022
This is thoughtful and highly entertaining like most of Everett's books. His black humor and impeccable comic timing is in evidence throughout.
Not Sidney is always well-intentioned, charming, and horrifically naive. He's a very engaging narrator, but doesn't develop much; all the unfortunate misadventures just seem to be shrugged off. The section at the Larkins, for instance, is horrifically funny, but also a bit didactic. I miss the layers and unified sweep of novels like Telephone or Glyph.
There's a professor character named Percival Everett in the novel. And Bill Cosby pops up here and there. Must be rather different to read this pre-scandal.
Not Sidney is always well-intentioned, charming, and horrifically naive. He's a very engaging narrator, but doesn't develop much; all the unfortunate misadventures just seem to be shrugged off. The section at the Larkins, for instance, is horrifically funny, but also a bit didactic. I miss the layers and unified sweep of novels like Telephone or Glyph.
There's a professor character named Percival Everett in the novel. And Bill Cosby pops up here and there. Must be rather different to read this pre-scandal.
May 5, 2024
Inventive, entertaining and humerous, Everett has once again produced a novel that treats race issues with a deceptively light touch.
I'd describe this as a really good literary page turner.
I'd describe this as a really good literary page turner.
January 31, 2025
Another year, another Everett. What started with "The Trees" has blossomed into a literary love affair. Now, four books in, I can without reserve that I am a fan. And "I Am Not Sidney Poitier" might be the strangest, most meta one of those four yet.
It's hard to describe this one, crazy as it is. Imagine "Forrest Gump" (but better) crossed with "Get Out." Want some idea of how wacky this whole thing is? Let's run down the main characters.
Not Sidney Poitier (not Sidney Poitier)
Ted Turner (yes, that Ted Turner)
Jane Fonda (yes, that Jane Fonda)
and Percival Everett, otherwise known as the author of "Erasure"
among others (most of them racists and religious zealots)
The section of the book that involves Not Sidney Poitier's trip to his girlfriend's family's house for Thanksgiving is one of the funniest things I've read in ages. When was the last time I actually laughed out loud like that?
Oh yeah, that'd have been while reading "James" by Percival Everett. And before that, reading "Erasure" by Percival Everett. And before that? "The Trees" by, you guessed it, Percival Everett.
In other words, I think it's safe to say that's Everett the funniest author I've come across, which sounds impressive enough before even considering the subject matter of those previous books (slavery, murder, murder and mutilation, police brutality, as well as countless instances of both casual and overt racism). That Everett can write book after book full of scenes like these, while still being funny as hell? Now that's talent!
Onto the next one!
It's hard to describe this one, crazy as it is. Imagine "Forrest Gump" (but better) crossed with "Get Out." Want some idea of how wacky this whole thing is? Let's run down the main characters.
Not Sidney Poitier (not Sidney Poitier)
Ted Turner (yes, that Ted Turner)
Jane Fonda (yes, that Jane Fonda)
and Percival Everett, otherwise known as the author of "Erasure"
among others (most of them racists and religious zealots)
The section of the book that involves Not Sidney Poitier's trip to his girlfriend's family's house for Thanksgiving is one of the funniest things I've read in ages. When was the last time I actually laughed out loud like that?
Oh yeah, that'd have been while reading "James" by Percival Everett. And before that, reading "Erasure" by Percival Everett. And before that? "The Trees" by, you guessed it, Percival Everett.
In other words, I think it's safe to say that's Everett the funniest author I've come across, which sounds impressive enough before even considering the subject matter of those previous books (slavery, murder, murder and mutilation, police brutality, as well as countless instances of both casual and overt racism). That Everett can write book after book full of scenes like these, while still being funny as hell? Now that's talent!
Onto the next one!
September 14, 2025
I thoroughly enjoyed reading I Am Not Sidney Poitier. The title of the book is a take on the old Abbott and Costello bit, “Who’s on First.” Not Sidney is not Sidney.
This book is about identity, and most especially black identity. Not Sidney is something of a coming of age novel wherein Not Sidney sets about the work of life and encounters the inherent racism that dominates his attempts. He is arrested for driving while black and is not black enough for his prospective girlfriend’s parents, in a parody of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
I appreciated the humor in this novel. Everett’s portrayal of Ted Turner creates an unforgettable character who rambles from one subject to another, much like Trump rambling about the Unibomber. The author also creates a character with his own name as a professor of nonsense (pun intended) at an HBCU. Here is a passage I enjoyed:
“Hmmph. Young man, let me just say this, I am one sixteenth black, an eighth, Irish, two-fifths Choctaw, one-thirty-second Dutch, a quarter English, and a ninth German.“. And Not Sidney thinks, “I didn’t, nor did I want to, do the math, but it was clear that he was ten-tenths crazy.“
There are other parodies of Poitier’s films, such as Lilies of the Field. Others, too. You don’t need to have seen these films to appreciate the novel, but it does add depth.
This book, which is my third from this author, is fun and definitely worth reading. Four smiling stars.
This book is about identity, and most especially black identity. Not Sidney is something of a coming of age novel wherein Not Sidney sets about the work of life and encounters the inherent racism that dominates his attempts. He is arrested for driving while black and is not black enough for his prospective girlfriend’s parents, in a parody of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.
I appreciated the humor in this novel. Everett’s portrayal of Ted Turner creates an unforgettable character who rambles from one subject to another, much like Trump rambling about the Unibomber. The author also creates a character with his own name as a professor of nonsense (pun intended) at an HBCU. Here is a passage I enjoyed:
“Hmmph. Young man, let me just say this, I am one sixteenth black, an eighth, Irish, two-fifths Choctaw, one-thirty-second Dutch, a quarter English, and a ninth German.“. And Not Sidney thinks, “I didn’t, nor did I want to, do the math, but it was clear that he was ten-tenths crazy.“
There are other parodies of Poitier’s films, such as Lilies of the Field. Others, too. You don’t need to have seen these films to appreciate the novel, but it does add depth.
This book, which is my third from this author, is fun and definitely worth reading. Four smiling stars.
September 23, 2016
Brilliant damn writing. There's a scene when Not Sidney Poitier has an encounter with some orphaned white kids in the country that had me crying, struggling to get through between fits of laugher on the train. Masterful book, great character development, hilarious dialogue. So glad I discovered Percival Everett's writing because I now want to read everything he's ever written.
January 2, 2025
Holy sh-t this is a good book! What an ending!
Full review:
I found a digital copy of I AM NOT SIDNEY POITIER by Percival Everett on Libby. Read by Amir Abdullah. All views are mine.
I walked through the lobby and a young woman came up to me and asked for my autograph. She said, "I just love you, Mr. Poitier!" I didn't know why. I asked her name. She said it was Evelyn. I wrote, "For Evelyn, All the best, Not Sidney Poitier." She was puzzled as she read. "You're not Sidney Poitier?" "I am." (7:28:38)
Three (or more) things I loved:
1. This character is fascinating even before he is born! His mother was pregnant for 2 years or "104 weeks" lol! And then she was in labor for 40 hours. Now that is a birth story!
2. The linguistic game in play throughout this story makes a powerful statement about names and identity.
3. This narrator is wonderful. The way he performs Ted Turner is funny and creative.
4. Everett's Ted Turner is a brilliant conception. From the scene where Not Sidney says goodbye to Ted, his surrogate father, in many ways: "I've often wondered how the soldiers of the Civil War could do it. Imagine, trying to run across the pasture with men getting blown to smithereens to the left and right of you, and you keep going? What is a smithereen?" (1:30:33)
5. I love the wonderful narrative turns through this book! Not twists, but turns. The plot has a shape like a EKG, with frequent shifts in direction, zigs and zags, but natural. My favorite is when Not gets arrested in a small southern town called Smut-eye, and ends up bedding down at the home of a racist sheriff with impenetrable motives.
6. Professor Everett is in the book! I usually hate it when writers put themselves in the book, but this execution is awesome.
Three (or less) things I didn't love:
This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.
1. Chapters are really long and cover a great deal of narrative distance. This could be meta though, in which case, it's pretty clever. But still harder on readers.
Rating: 🪞🪞🪞🪞🪞 / literary mirrors to gaze in
Recommend? Yes!
Finished: Oct 14 '24
Format: Digital arc, Kindle
Read this book if you like:
⚗️ experimental fiction
🪞 meta fiction
👨👦Character driven stories with good plots
🪢 absurdity and absurdism
🟰 social justice and racial equity
Full review:
I found a digital copy of I AM NOT SIDNEY POITIER by Percival Everett on Libby. Read by Amir Abdullah. All views are mine.
I walked through the lobby and a young woman came up to me and asked for my autograph. She said, "I just love you, Mr. Poitier!" I didn't know why. I asked her name. She said it was Evelyn. I wrote, "For Evelyn, All the best, Not Sidney Poitier." She was puzzled as she read. "You're not Sidney Poitier?" "I am." (7:28:38)
Three (or more) things I loved:
1. This character is fascinating even before he is born! His mother was pregnant for 2 years or "104 weeks" lol! And then she was in labor for 40 hours. Now that is a birth story!
2. The linguistic game in play throughout this story makes a powerful statement about names and identity.
3. This narrator is wonderful. The way he performs Ted Turner is funny and creative.
4. Everett's Ted Turner is a brilliant conception. From the scene where Not Sidney says goodbye to Ted, his surrogate father, in many ways: "I've often wondered how the soldiers of the Civil War could do it. Imagine, trying to run across the pasture with men getting blown to smithereens to the left and right of you, and you keep going? What is a smithereen?" (1:30:33)
5. I love the wonderful narrative turns through this book! Not twists, but turns. The plot has a shape like a EKG, with frequent shifts in direction, zigs and zags, but natural. My favorite is when Not gets arrested in a small southern town called Smut-eye, and ends up bedding down at the home of a racist sheriff with impenetrable motives.
6. Professor Everett is in the book! I usually hate it when writers put themselves in the book, but this execution is awesome.
Three (or less) things I didn't love:
This section isn't only for criticisms. It's merely for items that I felt something for other than "love" or some interpretation thereof.
1. Chapters are really long and cover a great deal of narrative distance. This could be meta though, in which case, it's pretty clever. But still harder on readers.
Rating: 🪞🪞🪞🪞🪞 / literary mirrors to gaze in
Recommend? Yes!
Finished: Oct 14 '24
Format: Digital arc, Kindle
Read this book if you like:
⚗️ experimental fiction
🪞 meta fiction
👨👦Character driven stories with good plots
🪢 absurdity and absurdism
🟰 social justice and racial equity
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