American Fiction

At the seminar, his panel is poorly attended, in contrast to a packed room for an interview with Sintara Golden, whose bestselling novel We’s Lives in Da Ghetto panders to Black stereotypes. In Boston, Monk bonds with his mother Agnes, who shows signs of Alzheimer’s disease, and sister Lisa, a physician. Monk meets and starts dating Coraline, a lawyer living across the street from his mother’s beach house. Frustrated by Sintara’s success and the costs of care for his mother, Monk writes My Pafology, a satirical novel mocking the literary stereotypes expected from Black writers: melodramatic plots, deadbeat dads, gang violence, drugs. As “Stagg”, Monk is offered a movie deal from a producer, Wiley. In response to publishing executives’ insulting comments, Monk tries to sabotage the deal by demanding the title be changed to Fuck. Monk is invited to help judge the New England Book Association’s Literary Award as part of a “diversity push”, and he reluctantly accepts. Coraline, Cliff, and the public remain unaware that “Stagg” is Monk, and the FBI contacts the publisher, believing Stagg is a fugitive, as he claimed in interviews. Monk’s publisher submits Fuck for the Literary Award, forcing him to judge his own novel. Monk is even more offended when he finds that Coraline enjoyed reading Fuck; they argue and break up. The panel’s white Limousine liberal judges rave over Fuck, though Sintara calls it “pandering.” Monk agrees, but later argues that Sintara’s book is “trauma porn” and inauthentic to her African-American middle-class background. On family-housekeeper Lorraine’s wedding day, Monk finds Cliff living in Agnes’s beach house with two other men. Cliff never left Boston and has been partying and doing drugs, but Lorraine is happy to have him attend the wedding. The screen cuts to black, and the story is revealed to be Monk’s screenplay based on his experiences, written for Wiley’s production company as an alternative to the Fuck film adaptation. Monk has not revealed his identity to the public and is still separated from Coraline. Wiley likes the screenplay but asks Monk to write a different ending. Monk proposes one with his running away from the ceremony to apologize to his ex-girlfriend. Much to Monk’s dismay, Wiley (also busy filming blaxploitation film Plantation Annihilation) loves it, and the film moves into production. Monk drives away with Cliff after he and one of Wiley’s actors, playing a slave, acknowledge each other