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Suder

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About this listen

‘American literature’s philosopher king – and its sharpest satirist’ – The New Yorker

Craig Suder, third baseman for the Seattle Mariners, is in a slump. His batting average is shocking, his marriage somehow worse, and he secretly fears he’s inherited his mother’s insanity. Ordered to take a midseason rest, Suder instead takes his LP of Charlie Parker’s “Ornithology” and flees.

A dazzling tale of madness, confinement and the need for escape, Suder introduced Percival Everett to the world as a writer already fully capable of conjuring whole lives and worlds on the page.

Part of the Picador Collection, a series celebrating fifty years of Picador books and showcasing the best of modern literature.

Read Percival's Pulitzer Prize-winning novel James in paperback now.

 African American Genre Fiction Literary Fiction

Critic reviews

A mad work of comic genius, combining symbols and myths from ancients and moderns, white culture and black, juxtaposing heartbreaks with farce to make up a narrative that has never, never been told before
[A] marvellous first novel
Very funny – sometimes excruciatingly so
Who could meld baseball and jazz with the most wistful male myth of all – the Icarus myth –remembering that Daedalus really did do it: He flew
American literature’s philosopher king – and its sharpest satirist
Everett has mastered the movement between unspeakable terror and knock out comedy
All stars
Most relevant
It was an interesting story. It didn’t grip me as much as I was hoping sadly but the nuances were beautiful. I’d say that his previous two books were stronger in terms of story arc. I still think it is a good book and would recommend it.

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