American Fiction

Thelonious "Monk" Ellison is a highly intelligent African-American upper-class writer and professor in Los Angeles. While his novels receive academic praise, they sell poorly, and publishers reject his latest manuscript for not being "Black enough". His university places him on temporary leave due to his brashness with students over racial issues and suggests he attend a literary seminar and spend time with family in his hometown of Boston. 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.