2024-01-18 14:45:00
In his new novel, Percival Everett continues to interweave the codes of the thriller and the western to tell the story of a world dominated by racism.
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In the small town of Money (Mississippi), people continue to be wary of black people. The Rednecks, followers of Donald Trump, are no better than their Ku Klux Klan ancestors. So, when we discover a series of murders of white men, disfigured, strangled with barbed wire and mutilated, hatred skyrockets. Especially since next to the bodies, each time there is a second corpse, that of a Black man, always the same, who appears and disappears. And this ghost looks like Emmett Till, lynched in the 1950s. His story remained in the memories of the city because the teenager had been accused of having whistled at a young white girl. That was all it took to sentence him to death.
To this criminal story, Percival Everett adds a duo of black cops, Jim Davis and Ed Morgan, a little crazy and frankly funny, who will work on the investigation with the sheriff of Money. The past will soon return with its remnants of vengeance and racism which clearly speak its name.
Percival Everett is clever, he conveys the horror with big jokes and scathing humor. It plays with the codes of the thriller or the western and adds a pinch of fantasy to blur the lines and make the pleasure last. “When you want to know a place, you talk to its history,” explains Mama Z, vaguely witchy, to Jim and Ed, the two investigators. The explanation is simple and fair.
We feel that the novelist knows his classics, that he has read Chester Himes and adores his favorite characters, Ed Coffin and Gravedigger Jones. Between two crime scenes, Percival Everett paints a portrait of America full of mud and hatred. The affair ends in a cold room but there is no question of saying more.
Punishment, Percival Everett, translated from the American by Anne-Laure Tissut, Actes Sud editions, 368pp, €22.50
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