Description: In Jesting in Earnest, Maus critically examines fourteen of Everett's novels and several of his shorter works through the lens of Menippean satire, focusing on how it supports Everett's broader aim of stimulating thoughtful interpretation that is unfettered by common assumptions and preconceived notions.
Brief description: Derek C. Maus is a professor of English at the State University of New York at Potsdam, where he teaches contemporary literature. He has authored or edited scholarly books on a range of subjects, including Russian and American satire during the Cold War, contemporary African American satire, Colson Whitehead, and Walter Mosley.
Review Quotes:
Jesting in Earnest: Percival Everett and Menippean Satire does a remarkable job of productively coping with this problem [of classifying Percival Everett's work] by reading Everett's fiction in terms of 'an interpretive framework' for examining Everett's 'thirty-volume megawork.
-- "African American Review"