I Am Not Sidney Poitier

I Am Not Sidney Poitier by Percival Everett (2009) I wanted to read another Percival Everett book—thought I’d see what I could get an audio book version of—tried this and got caught up in it—immediately funny and entertaining and very strange. The narrator is really good (who I should make a point of crediting: Amir Abdullah) especially as the first-person protagonist with the unlikely name, Not Sidney Poitier—who is both wide-eyed and naive, but also very smart—a good combination for a reader to go along for the ride—named that by his eccentric mother who also invested early in Ted Turner’s companies—but dies young, leaving Not Sidney wealthy—and also raised partly by Turner. It’s evident early on that some situations (and dreams) in Not Sidney’s epic adventure are based on plots and stories from Sidney Poitier movies—some of which I’ve seen many times, but maybe not lately—and some not at all—so I considered waiting to read this until after I revisited some of those movies. But I was already caught up in the book. I certainly don’t think a work of art needs to be only one thing—so it works very well, for me, that the story deals with issues of racism, classism, wealth and poverty, the South, power struggles, you name it—while at the same time is one of the most hilarious books I’ve come across—and the humor is at once lowbrow, absurd, sophisticated, and pointed. One of my favorite parts, actually, is when Not Sidney goes to college and enrolls in a class called “The Philosophy of Nonsense” with a professor named “Percival Everett” whose lectures are ridiculous—he’s a great character—and is ultimately more than a minor part. I want to go back and read those parts, they’re so good—I guess I’ll have to get the book. But as an audio book, it’s worth a re-visit, as well, as I feel like I was only scratching the surface of some of the book’s themes and could understand more, and then be able to talk about it more in depth. Rigorous, but not a chore, because it’s quite entertaining.

6.12.25