Erasure

Thelonious “Monk” Ellison, the diarist, is a writer of fiction. Monk has dark skin, curly hair, and “some of [his] ancestors were slaves.” He’s had unpleasant encounters with the police in several states. According to “society,” then, he’s Black. He also graduated summa cum laude from Harvard and comes from a family of doctors. Monk recalls a book agent at a party who once told him that he ought to stop “writing retellings of Euripides and parodies of French poststructuralists” and write novels about “the true, gritty real stories of black life.” Monk, for his part, hardly ever thinks about race. In fact, he doesn’t “believe in race.”

Now, Monk arrives in Washington to give a paper at a conference for the Nouveau Roman Society, not because he wants to but because it’s been a while since he visited home. Lisa, his older sister, didn’t offer to pick him up from the airport. Monk doesn’t think Lisa hates him, but she does seem to hold a grudge against him. She seems to think his life teaching college literature courses out in California is rather superficial compared to her work as a doctor, risking her life to deliver reproductive healthcare—including abortions—to low-income women. Monk’s older brother Bill is a plastic surgeon out in Scottsdale, Arizona. Monk hasn’t seen him in four years. Bill has a wife and two kids, though everyone knows he’s gay.

Monk checks into the Tabbard Inn, a B&B off Dupont Circle. After unpacking his things, he heads down to the lobby to call Lisa at her office. When she picks up, her voice is a mixture of disgruntled and bored. Lisa asks if Monk has visited their mother yet. When he says he hasn’t, she offers to pick him up and they can take Mother to dinner. Monk agrees. 

Lisa arrives an hour later in her luxury coupe. She tells Monk he’d better be ready for Mother, who is “a little weird these days.” Monk, taken aback, says Mother has always seemed fine on the phone. Lisa replies that you can’t tell much from a five-minute phone conversation. She explains that Mother has been forgetting things lately. Several months ago, she paid all the bills twice. Now, Lisa is the one paying the bills and taking care of everything else. Lorraine is still around, of course, “stealing little things here and there.”

Monk and Lisa ask each other about their respective work. Lisa grumbles about the “anti-abortionist creeps” who protest outside her clinic. They frighten her—recently, in Maryland, a sniper shot a nurse through a clinic window. After a pause, Lisa breaks the silence to praise Monk for his intelligence—he understands complex things and thinks about them even though he doesn’t have to. Bill, meanwhile, is a smart guy and good enough “butcher,” but that’s still all he is: a butcher.

Monk and Lisa arrive at Mother’s house, where Mother greets Monk warmly. Then she turns to Lisa and asks whether she and Barry are pregnant yet. Lisa, for the umpteenth time, reminds Mother that she’s divorced. While Mother gets ready for dinner, Monk peers around the house. He comments on the ashes in the fireplace. Later, when Lisa confronts Mother about the ashes, Mother absently explains that she burned some documents that Father wanted burned after his death. Lisa reminds her that Father died seven years ago.

After a mostly uneventful dinner, Lisa drops Monk off at the B&B. In his room, he finds a message from Linda Mallory, an author and fellow professor he has had sex with twice. Monk calls Linda back. She’s staying at the Mayflower and invites him over for a drink. Monk reluctantly agrees to meet her at the hotel bar. Linda is a woman who says she “like[s] to fuck,” but Monk thinks she might like saying it more than doing it. What Monk really dislikes about Linda, though, is her lack of literary talent. She’s among a group of  writers who wrote experimental fiction in the 1960s, only surviving by publishing one another’s work. These people comprise most of the Nouveau Roman Society. They hate Monk because he’s had moderate success. 

Monk meets Linda at the Mayflower. They talk shop, and Monk complains about the panel and the people on it. Linda unsubtly asks if Monk would like to go up to her room. Monk somewhat gracelessly shrugs off the question and returns to his own hotel after one drink.