An Interview With Percival Everett

In this episode, we chat with acclaimed author, poet, and painter Percival Everett to discuss his award-winning novel James— the 2024 National Book Award winner and Libro.fm’s Audiobook of the Year. Percival shares his thoughts on the magic of language, the role of place in storytelling, and the whirlwind experience of his recent book tour. He also reflects on balancing his many creative passions, his journey as a writer, and the profound power of literature.

Libro.fm: So the power of language and how we own language is something that I’ve heard you speak about before, and I love in an interview where you mentioned that ownership of language is an avenue to any type of freedom that we’re going to have. I’d love to hear you just speak a little bit more about [that] thread that…is pulled through all of your work. I’m curious maybe how that’s evolved for you over time and how that’s become so central to your writing.

Percival: Just the idea of language is essential to my entire project as a person. I’m amazed that I could sit here uttering these sounds and that you can understand what I’m saying to you and what I’m trying to talk about. It would be one thing if we were standing out under a cliff and I say, “Oh, rock,” and you run out of the way, but we can talk about abstract ideas and they could mean something. The beauty of it is we’re capable of not understanding each other, yet still making meaning. And so that gives language of life of its own, however dependent it is on speaker and hearer.

So starting with that and the magic of this thing we call language, it makes sense that anyone who wants to control us or hurt us, the first thing they do is take away language, take away certain words. For example, in our own culture, there obviously are conspiracies in the world, but if you use the word conspiracy, you’re a nut now. That word has been taken away from us […] Likewise, much to the benefit of politicians and shysters, we no longer have the philosophical, the rhetorical identifier begging the question. People always misuse it now, and I hear it in the news all the time, they use beg the question or raise the question. And to assume a conclusion is not satisfactory. To them the question was something levied against politicians who would answer questions with questions, where you’re getting no place, but if you can’t say that, then you can’t accuse anyone of it. And so I feel that that’s been taken away from us as well.

Libro.fm: You’ve mentioned conversations with your students in that last response, and I just can’t imagine how lucky students must feel to work with you. I’m wondering what are some of the common questions you get from young writers and how you respond to those questions?

Percival: Well, the questions that are always interesting are the ones that are really particular to the individual. […] They always ask me what should they do if they want to be writers? My answer unilaterally and every time is marry money. But the real answer is to do it because you love literature. You’d be insane to do this to get rich, and just the payback is not worth all the time unless you love it.

So, it depends on what someone is asking me. It’s always be true to your vision, and people come to it at different times. There are two conversations [you] can have with students. One is, “Don’t quit your day job.” And that’s an easy conversation. I don’t mind that one. The tough one is to say, “You have something and I think you should spend many hours doing something that won’t pay you back very much.” So, I take that very seriously.

Libro.fm: Were there any particular artists that were most influential to you as you were writing that first novel?

Percival: Well, as a kid, I got moved from the outfield to third base because of Kurt Vonnegut. At least I got caught with Breakfast of Champions in my mitt. There were so many writers. I got Tom McGuane, Ishmael Reed, Zora Neale Hurston was great. All these people […] I don’t think I’ve read anything that I even disliked that didn’t inspire me in some way.

And that’s the thing. What I mean by love of literature, there are all sorts of failed novels that are fantastic. In fact, those are some of the more interesting ones. They just don’t work, but damn, they’re interesting.

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About our guest

Percival Everett is a celebrated American writer and a Distinguished Professor of English at USC whose 2024 novel James won the National Book Award. His work has earned numerous honors, including the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award, the NBCC Ivan Sandrof Life Achievement Award, and the Windham-Campbell Prize. In 2023, his novel Erasure was adapted into the feature film American Fiction.