Erasure

by

Percival Everett

Stagg R. Leigh is the pseudonym under which Monk pens My Pafology, which he later retitles Fuck. Ashamed at the thought of others deeming him a sell-out, Monk decides to play the part of Stagg in his interactions with the various editors, publishers, and producers interested in securing the rights to his novella. The Stagg persona Monk acts out is an exaggerated stereotype of a hardened Black criminal whose rough, underprivileged upbringing has denied him opportunities for economic and self-improvement—until now. Echoing praise directed toward other works of so-called “Black” fiction, critics laud Fuck as a “true, raw, gritty work” that adeptly captures the reality of Black American life. After the novel inexplicably wins The Book Award, Monk, to everyone’s great confusion, walks onstage to accept the award, implicitly revealing himself as the elusive Stagg Leigh.

Stagg R. Leigh Quotes in Erasure

The Erasure quotes below are all either spoken by Stagg R. Leigh or refer to Stagg R. Leigh. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Race and Identity  Theme Icon
).
Chapter 5 Quotes

“The line is, you’re not black enough,” my agent said.

“What’s that mean, Yul? How do they even know I’m black? Why does it matter?”

“We’ve been over this before. They know because of the photo on your first book. They know because they’ve seen you. They know because you’re black, for crying out loud.”

“What, do I have to have my characters comb their afros and be called niggers for these people?”

“It wouldn’t hurt.”

I was stunned into silence.

Related Characters: Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (speaker), Yul (speaker), Stagg R. Leigh
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:
My Pafology: Won Quotes

I look at my hands and they all covered wif blood and I realize I don’t know what goin on. So, I stab Mama again. I stab her cause I scared. I stab Mama cause I love her. I stab Mama cause I hate her. Cause I love her. Cause I hate her. Cause I ain’t got no daddy. Then I walk out the kitchen and stand outside, leavin Mama crawlin round on the linolum tryin to hold in her guts. I stands out on the sidewalk just drippin blood like a muthafucka. I look up at the sky and I try to see Jesus, but I cain’t.

Related Characters: Van Go Jenkins (speaker), Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, Stagg R. Leigh, Clareece Jenkins (Go’s Mother / Mama)
Page Number: 65
Explanation and Analysis:
My Pafology: Too Quotes

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” Yellow say.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” Yellow say.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” Yellow say.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” Yellow say.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” Yellow say.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” Yellow say.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” Yellow say.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” Yellow say.

“You ain’t shit,” I say.

“Well, you is shit,” Yellow say.

Related Characters: Van Go Jenkins (speaker), Yellow (speaker), Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, Stagg R. Leigh, Juanita Mae Jenkins
Page Number: 75-76
Explanation and Analysis:
My Pafology: Ate Quotes

I can feel the rage swell up inside me. I hates this man. I hates my mama. I hates myself. I’m seein my face in his. I see the ape that stupid girls say they be fraid of. [...] I see Mama bleedin in my dream. I see my babies. I see Rexall, wifout a brain, growin up and axing “Why not me?” I see my daddy. I see myself. I shoot the muthafucka. Pop! In the gut.

Willy double over and he look at me like to say, “Why?” I yell at him. I be standin over him yellin at the back of his head. “Cause you aint shit!” I say. “Cause you made me, muthafucka! Cause I aint shit!” I be cryin now and I think I hear sumpin out at the street. I run again.

Related Characters: Van Go Jenkins (speaker), Willy the Wonker (speaker), Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, Stagg R. Leigh, Clareece Jenkins (Go’s Mother / Mama)
Page Number: 124
Explanation and Analysis:
My Pafology: Tin Quotes

I looks up and see the cameras. I get kicked again while I’m bein pulled to my feet. But I dont care. The cameras is pointin at me. I be on the TV. The cameras be full of me. I on TV. I say, “Hey, Mama.” I say, “Hey, Baby Girl. Look at me. I on TV.”

Related Characters: Van Go Jenkins (speaker), Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, Stagg R. Leigh, Clareece Jenkins (Go’s Mother / Mama), Korean Man, Tardreece/Baby Girl
Page Number: 131
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

The news of the money came and I breathed an ironic and bitter sigh of relief. Maybe I felt a bit of vindication somewhere inside me. Certainly, I felt a great deal of hostility toward an industry so eager to seek out and sell such demeaning and soul-destroying drivel.

Related Characters: Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (speaker), Stagg R. Leigh, Mother
Page Number: 137
Explanation and Analysis:

I tried to distance myself from the position where the newly sold piece-of-shit novel had placed me vis-à-vis my art. It was not exactly the case that I had sold out, but I was not, apparently, going to turn away the check. I considered my woodworking and why I did it. In my writing my instinct was to defy form, but I very much sought in defying it to affirm it, an irony that was difficult enough to articulate, much less defend. But the wood, the feel of it, the smell of it, the weight of it. It was so much more real than words. The wood was so simple. Damnit, a table was a table was a table.

Related Characters: Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (speaker), Stagg R. Leigh
Related Symbols: Woodworking
Page Number: 139
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

“Have you ever known anybody who talks like they do in that book?” I could hear the edge on my voice and though I didn’t want it there, I knew that once detected, it could never be erased.

Related Characters: Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (speaker), Stagg R. Leigh, Juanita Mae Jenkins, Marilyn Tilman
Page Number: 188
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

Somewhere in Hollywood, Wiley Morgenstein smoked a cigar and contemplated the commercial value of My Pafology. He sat poolside with a big man from New Jersey with whom he attended two years of school at Passaic Junior College thirty years earlier.

Wiley smiled and relit his cigar. “They go to the movies now, these people. There’s an itch and I plan to scratch it.”

Related Characters: Wiley Morgenstein (speaker), Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, Stagg R. Leigh
Page Number: 193
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

The fear of course is that in denying or refusing complicity in the marginalization of “black” writers, I ended up on the very distant and very “other” side of a line that is imaginary at best. [...] I never tried to set anybody free, never tried to paint the next real and true picture of the life of my people, never had any people whose picture I knew well enough to paint. […] But the irony was beautiful. I was a victim of racism by virtue of my failing to acknowledge racial difference and by failing to have my art be defined as an exercise in racial self-expression. So, I would not be economically oppressed because of writing a book that fell in line with the very books I deemed racist. And I would have to wear the mask of the person I was expected to be.

Related Characters: Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (speaker), Stagg R. Leigh, Mother
Page Number: 212
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

“God, I just love that,” Kenya says, shaking her head. “Now, I know some of you at home are thinking that some of the language is kinda rough, but let me tell you, it doesn’t get any more real than this. With this kinda talent, chile, don’t you think we ought to forgive our guest’s intense bashfulness?”

Audience applause, approval, endorsement, blessing.

Related Characters: Kenya Dunston (speaker), Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, Stagg R. Leigh, Van Go Jenkins, Cleona
Page Number: 251
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

I chose one of the TV cameras and stared into it. I said, “Egads, I’m on television.”

Related Characters: Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (speaker), Stagg R. Leigh, Van Go Jenkins, Clareece Jenkins (Go’s Mother / Mama), Tardreece/Baby Girl
Page Number: 266
Explanation and Analysis:
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Erasure PDF

Stagg R. Leigh Quotes in Erasure

The Erasure quotes below are all either spoken by Stagg R. Leigh or refer to Stagg R. Leigh. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Race and Identity  Theme Icon
).
Chapter 5 Quotes

“The line is, you’re not black enough,” my agent said.

“What’s that mean, Yul? How do they even know I’m black? Why does it matter?”

“We’ve been over this before. They know because of the photo on your first book. They know because they’ve seen you. They know because you’re black, for crying out loud.”

“What, do I have to have my characters comb their afros and be called niggers for these people?”

“It wouldn’t hurt.”

I was stunned into silence.

Related Characters: Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (speaker), Yul (speaker), Stagg R. Leigh
Page Number: 43
Explanation and Analysis:
My Pafology: Won Quotes

I look at my hands and they all covered wif blood and I realize I don’t know what goin on. So, I stab Mama again. I stab her cause I scared. I stab Mama cause I love her. I stab Mama cause I hate her. Cause I love her. Cause I hate her. Cause I ain’t got no daddy. Then I walk out the kitchen and stand outside, leavin Mama crawlin round on the linolum tryin to hold in her guts. I stands out on the sidewalk just drippin blood like a muthafucka. I look up at the sky and I try to see Jesus, but I cain’t.

Related Characters: Van Go Jenkins (speaker), Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, Stagg R. Leigh, Clareece Jenkins (Go’s Mother / Mama)
Page Number: 65
Explanation and Analysis:
My Pafology: Too Quotes

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” Yellow say.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” Yellow say.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” Yellow say.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” Yellow say.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” Yellow say.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” Yellow say.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” Yellow say.

“Fuck you,” I say.

“Fuck you,” Yellow say.

“You ain’t shit,” I say.

“Well, you is shit,” Yellow say.

Related Characters: Van Go Jenkins (speaker), Yellow (speaker), Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, Stagg R. Leigh, Juanita Mae Jenkins
Page Number: 75-76
Explanation and Analysis:
My Pafology: Ate Quotes

I can feel the rage swell up inside me. I hates this man. I hates my mama. I hates myself. I’m seein my face in his. I see the ape that stupid girls say they be fraid of. [...] I see Mama bleedin in my dream. I see my babies. I see Rexall, wifout a brain, growin up and axing “Why not me?” I see my daddy. I see myself. I shoot the muthafucka. Pop! In the gut.

Willy double over and he look at me like to say, “Why?” I yell at him. I be standin over him yellin at the back of his head. “Cause you aint shit!” I say. “Cause you made me, muthafucka! Cause I aint shit!” I be cryin now and I think I hear sumpin out at the street. I run again.

Related Characters: Van Go Jenkins (speaker), Willy the Wonker (speaker), Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, Stagg R. Leigh, Clareece Jenkins (Go’s Mother / Mama)
Page Number: 124
Explanation and Analysis:
My Pafology: Tin Quotes

I looks up and see the cameras. I get kicked again while I’m bein pulled to my feet. But I dont care. The cameras is pointin at me. I be on the TV. The cameras be full of me. I on TV. I say, “Hey, Mama.” I say, “Hey, Baby Girl. Look at me. I on TV.”

Related Characters: Van Go Jenkins (speaker), Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, Stagg R. Leigh, Clareece Jenkins (Go’s Mother / Mama), Korean Man, Tardreece/Baby Girl
Page Number: 131
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 7 Quotes

The news of the money came and I breathed an ironic and bitter sigh of relief. Maybe I felt a bit of vindication somewhere inside me. Certainly, I felt a great deal of hostility toward an industry so eager to seek out and sell such demeaning and soul-destroying drivel.

Related Characters: Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (speaker), Stagg R. Leigh, Mother
Page Number: 137
Explanation and Analysis:

I tried to distance myself from the position where the newly sold piece-of-shit novel had placed me vis-à-vis my art. It was not exactly the case that I had sold out, but I was not, apparently, going to turn away the check. I considered my woodworking and why I did it. In my writing my instinct was to defy form, but I very much sought in defying it to affirm it, an irony that was difficult enough to articulate, much less defend. But the wood, the feel of it, the smell of it, the weight of it. It was so much more real than words. The wood was so simple. Damnit, a table was a table was a table.

Related Characters: Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (speaker), Stagg R. Leigh
Related Symbols: Woodworking
Page Number: 139
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 11 Quotes

“Have you ever known anybody who talks like they do in that book?” I could hear the edge on my voice and though I didn’t want it there, I knew that once detected, it could never be erased.

Related Characters: Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (speaker), Stagg R. Leigh, Juanita Mae Jenkins, Marilyn Tilman
Page Number: 188
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 12 Quotes

Somewhere in Hollywood, Wiley Morgenstein smoked a cigar and contemplated the commercial value of My Pafology. He sat poolside with a big man from New Jersey with whom he attended two years of school at Passaic Junior College thirty years earlier.

Wiley smiled and relit his cigar. “They go to the movies now, these people. There’s an itch and I plan to scratch it.”

Related Characters: Wiley Morgenstein (speaker), Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, Stagg R. Leigh
Page Number: 193
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 14 Quotes

The fear of course is that in denying or refusing complicity in the marginalization of “black” writers, I ended up on the very distant and very “other” side of a line that is imaginary at best. [...] I never tried to set anybody free, never tried to paint the next real and true picture of the life of my people, never had any people whose picture I knew well enough to paint. […] But the irony was beautiful. I was a victim of racism by virtue of my failing to acknowledge racial difference and by failing to have my art be defined as an exercise in racial self-expression. So, I would not be economically oppressed because of writing a book that fell in line with the very books I deemed racist. And I would have to wear the mask of the person I was expected to be.

Related Characters: Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (speaker), Stagg R. Leigh, Mother
Page Number: 212
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 17 Quotes

“God, I just love that,” Kenya says, shaking her head. “Now, I know some of you at home are thinking that some of the language is kinda rough, but let me tell you, it doesn’t get any more real than this. With this kinda talent, chile, don’t you think we ought to forgive our guest’s intense bashfulness?”

Audience applause, approval, endorsement, blessing.

Related Characters: Kenya Dunston (speaker), Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, Stagg R. Leigh, Van Go Jenkins, Cleona
Page Number: 251
Explanation and Analysis:
Chapter 18 Quotes

I chose one of the TV cameras and stared into it. I said, “Egads, I’m on television.”

Related Characters: Thelonious “Monk” Ellison (speaker), Stagg R. Leigh, Van Go Jenkins, Clareece Jenkins (Go’s Mother / Mama), Tardreece/Baby Girl
Page Number: 266
Explanation and Analysis: