Erasure

Μonk helps his mother dress for Lorraine’s wedding. As her disease worsens, she thinks he is Lorraine. Monk is happy about Lorraine getting married, since she would no longer be alone. However, he hesitates to commit his mother to the nursing home, thinking it signals her end.

When they arrive at Maynard’s house, they see him and Lorraine arguing because Lorraine claims that he called her old. Monk learns that Maynard’s daughter hates Lorraine as he talks with the daughter’s husband. The man asks Monk what he does and Monk says he is a novelist. The man immediately thinks Monk is rich and asks what present he is giving to Lorraine. Monk decides to give her $10,000. On hearing this, the man immediately brightens, and Monk thinks Maynard’s family is “mercenary.” Soon after, his mother has another episode and locks herself in the bathroom because she does not recognize anyone. Monk manages to get her out just as the minister arrives for the wedding. Monk takes his mother to the car and tells her the wedding is over. There, she seems more like herself again. Monk calls Bill and tells him their mother must be commit to the nursing home. Bill says that he will come visit her.

Monk stays by his mother’s side all night, afraid of what she might do. In the morning, he falls asleep in the kitchen, but his mother manages to make tea on her own. He tells her to pack a bag because he must take her to a hospital. Later, they go on a stroll by the beach, and he tries to explain the situation to her. She talks about Lisa and says she cannot believe she is gone. She also says it was sad that Bill and their father could not get along and wishes she could see Bill’s children more often. She asks Monk why he has not married and tells him he was his father’s favorite. Monk feels that his mother was at that moment “so lucid, so reasonable, so much herself” (202). He tells her that she must go to live in a new place, and she says she trusts him. Some days later, he takes her to the nursing home. When he returns home, he feels its emptiness. Bill calls him and says he has arrived.

Monk goes to meet Bill and sees that he now has blond hair. As they drive home, Bill says he broke up with his newest partner. They visit their mother in the evening, and she does not recognize them. Monk tells Bill not to worry about the money.

Later, Yul calls Monk and tells him a producer is interested in making My Pafology into a film and is offering 3 million dollars for the rights. The producer also wants to meet the author. Monk agrees and says he will have lunch with the producer. He thinks that the novel is not a work of art but “a functional device” (208). He speaks with the editor and tells her that he wants to change the novel’s title to Fuck; he thinks that this will emphasize that it is a parody. The editor agrees.

Monk looks through his father’s box again and finds an address for Fiona’s sister; it is an apartment in New York.

Monk feels that he became “a victim of racism by virtue of [his] failing to acknowledge racial difference” (212). He notes that as a writer, he never tried to speak or represent the lives of Black people. Now, his book, My Pafology, resembles the books that he considered racist and he must pretend to be somebody he is not. However, the money is nice, and he is amused by the whole situation.

In the morning, he waits for Bill, who is late because he went out at night and hasn’t returned. When Bill comes back, they are awkward with one another and Monk feels he cannot understand his brother’s language. Monk says he is going to the nursing home to see their mother, and Bill tells him he is like their father.

At the nursing home, Monk looks at the bookshelves while he waits for his mother. He tries to decide what annoys him so much about Jenkins’s book. He thinks that while white people write bad books, too, one single book is never seen as a representation of them as a whole race. Soon after, his mother’s doctor informs him that his mother was having a bad day and they sedated her. Monk imagines that the doctor is Lisa and that she is telling him to go home and that their mother is not suffering. She also says to not mind Bill. When he returns home, Bill is not there, but he has left Monk a note that says, “fuck you.”

Monk prepares for his meeting with the producer, Wiley Morgenstein. Monk practices being Leigh in front of a mirror. He meets Morgenstein at a restaurant. Morgenstein says he loved the novel and laughed with it. He says that he expected Leigh to be different, and Monk asks whether he thought he would be “more Black.” Morgenstein says yes. He asks Monk why he was in prison and Monk says he stabbed someone. Morgenstein is then sure that Leigh is “the real thing” (218). Before leaving, the producer asks for a phone number. Monk laughs and leaves.