What do you think?
Rate this book
Assumption
A baffling triptych of murder mysteries by the author of I Am Not Sidney Poitier
Ogden Walker, deputy sheriff of a small New Mexico town, is on the trail of an old woman's murderer. But at the crime scene, his are the only footprints leading up to and away from her door. Something is amiss, and even his mother knows it. As other cases pile up, Ogden gives chase, pursuing flimsy leads for even flimsier reasons. His hunt leads him from the seamier side of Denver to a hippie commune as he seeks the puzzling solution.
In Assumption , his follow-up to the wickedly funny I Am Not Sidney Poitier , Percival Everett is in top form as he once again upends our expectations about characters, plot, race, and meaning. A wild ride to the heart of a baffling mystery, Assumption is a literary thriller like no other.
Ogden Walker, deputy sheriff of a small New Mexico town, is on the trail of an old woman's murderer. But at the crime scene, his are the only footprints leading up to and away from her door. Something is amiss, and even his mother knows it. As other cases pile up, Ogden gives chase, pursuing flimsy leads for even flimsier reasons. His hunt leads him from the seamier side of Denver to a hippie commune as he seeks the puzzling solution.
In Assumption , his follow-up to the wickedly funny I Am Not Sidney Poitier , Percival Everett is in top form as he once again upends our expectations about characters, plot, race, and meaning. A wild ride to the heart of a baffling mystery, Assumption is a literary thriller like no other.
225 pages, Paperback
First published October 25, 2011
About the author
Percival Everett
67 books4,034 followersPercival L. Everett (born 1956) is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.
There might not be a more fertile mind in American fiction today than Everett’s. In 22 years, he has written 19 books, including a farcical Western, a savage satire of the publishing industry, a children’s story spoofing counting books, retellings of the Greek myths of Medea and Dionysus, and a philosophical tract narrated by a four-year-old.
The Washington Post has called Everett “one of the most adventurously experimental of modern American novelists.” And according to The Boston Globe, “He’s literature’s NASCAR champion, going flat out, narrowly avoiding one seemingly inevitable crash only to steer straight for the next.”
Everett, who teaches courses in creative writing, American studies and critical theory, says he writes about what interests him, which explains his prolific output and the range of subjects he has tackled. He also describes himself as a demanding teacher who learns from his students as much as they learn from him.
Everett’s writing has earned him the PEN USA 2006 Literary Award (for his 2005 novel, Wounded), the Academy Award for Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (for his 2001 novel, Erasure), the PEN/Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature (for his 1996 story collection, Big Picture) and the New American Writing Award (for his 1990 novel, Zulus). He has served as a judge for, among others, the 1997 National Book Award for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1991.
There might not be a more fertile mind in American fiction today than Everett’s. In 22 years, he has written 19 books, including a farcical Western, a savage satire of the publishing industry, a children’s story spoofing counting books, retellings of the Greek myths of Medea and Dionysus, and a philosophical tract narrated by a four-year-old.
The Washington Post has called Everett “one of the most adventurously experimental of modern American novelists.” And according to The Boston Globe, “He’s literature’s NASCAR champion, going flat out, narrowly avoiding one seemingly inevitable crash only to steer straight for the next.”
Everett, who teaches courses in creative writing, American studies and critical theory, says he writes about what interests him, which explains his prolific output and the range of subjects he has tackled. He also describes himself as a demanding teacher who learns from his students as much as they learn from him.
Everett’s writing has earned him the PEN USA 2006 Literary Award (for his 2005 novel, Wounded), the Academy Award for Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (for his 2001 novel, Erasure), the PEN/Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature (for his 1996 story collection, Big Picture) and the New American Writing Award (for his 1990 novel, Zulus). He has served as a judge for, among others, the 1997 National Book Award for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1991.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 227 reviews
January 30, 2019
My fourth Percival Everett novel and all I can think is how different each one of them has been, how surprising, how delightfully snookered by this book I'm feeling right now, in the best way possible. A wonderful read.
August 17, 2022
Amaze :chords chords chords:
I read this one twice to see exactly how he pulled it off. It's a five-star book but reading it right after The Trees, which is now one of my all-time favorites...oh, it's a five-star book. Adding the star.
:chords:
I read this one twice to see exactly how he pulled it off. It's a five-star book but reading it right after The Trees, which is now one of my all-time favorites...oh, it's a five-star book. Adding the star.
:chords:
May 17, 2012
I don’t know how Percival Everett made it on to recommended reading list, but I downloaded Assumptions and launched into what seemed like a well-done, standard, diverting mystery. I continued to think that’s what I had in my hands right through the first novella-length account of Deputy Ogden Walker’s investigation of various criminal activities in and around Plata, New Mexico. I figured I’d stumbled on to a skilled Tony Hillerman, who actually knew how to create characters and plots instead of Hollywood scenarios out of the high desert. I continued to think so
right through the second Ogden Walker adventure, my appreciation building at how Everett could make the idea of a black lawman in that white/Hispanic/Indian country seem odd and organic at the same time. Then I finished the third tale--and the book--and I started backtracking.
The ending was such a shock, I couldn’t understand how we got there. Until I began to see how Everett had so carefully planted the seeds, the clues, among the seeming conventions (you might call them cliches) of his detective novel. Ogden Walker is a loner. Fine--that’s one of the standard characteristics of the mystery’s protagonist, especially when you add the fact that he’s a rare black among the populace. He’s also a fly fisherman. Many of these guys have interesting hobbies. He has an odd guy for a boss--most literary detectives have eccentric sheriffs as a foil.
But if you do read this book, keep your eyes open for things that don’t add up. For missing spaces in various puzzles. I predict that you’ll be as confused as I was and am about what actually happened along the way. It’s one thing to have an unreliable first-person narrator, but an unreliable omniscient narrator (Not Dickens--omniscient, the close-third kind of omniscient)--now that’s a challenge. Mostly, I’d regard this as a gimmick that is meant to trick and manipulate the reader. In this case, I just think Everett is damn smart, and that Assumption is art reflecting reality at its most subtle and deceiving and surprising. I did try to justify an interpretation that included the assumption in the sense of Virgin Mary ascending into heaven, but didn’t find it. Maybe you will. As for myself, I’m off into another Percival Everett. He could be my author discovery of 2012.
right through the second Ogden Walker adventure, my appreciation building at how Everett could make the idea of a black lawman in that white/Hispanic/Indian country seem odd and organic at the same time. Then I finished the third tale--and the book--and I started backtracking.
The ending was such a shock, I couldn’t understand how we got there. Until I began to see how Everett had so carefully planted the seeds, the clues, among the seeming conventions (you might call them cliches) of his detective novel. Ogden Walker is a loner. Fine--that’s one of the standard characteristics of the mystery’s protagonist, especially when you add the fact that he’s a rare black among the populace. He’s also a fly fisherman. Many of these guys have interesting hobbies. He has an odd guy for a boss--most literary detectives have eccentric sheriffs as a foil.
But if you do read this book, keep your eyes open for things that don’t add up. For missing spaces in various puzzles. I predict that you’ll be as confused as I was and am about what actually happened along the way. It’s one thing to have an unreliable first-person narrator, but an unreliable omniscient narrator (Not Dickens--omniscient, the close-third kind of omniscient)--now that’s a challenge. Mostly, I’d regard this as a gimmick that is meant to trick and manipulate the reader. In this case, I just think Everett is damn smart, and that Assumption is art reflecting reality at its most subtle and deceiving and surprising. I did try to justify an interpretation that included the assumption in the sense of Virgin Mary ascending into heaven, but didn’t find it. Maybe you will. As for myself, I’m off into another Percival Everett. He could be my author discovery of 2012.
November 22, 2023
Rating : 3.85
Having read two of his latest stories of which both would be considered literature, I was ill prepared for a story about a small town Sheriff in NM.
As a USC professor of Literature and prolific black author, the only consistency with all three are black central characters which shows Everett loves genre variety. Here we are introduced to Sheriff Ogden who discovers a murder by mistake. Playing detective, clues begin to surface leading him down a twisted path. Unlike most mysteries, he chooses to leave the reader hanging and move on to another one.
What's interesting in this short novel is the variety of crimes, locations and characters demonstrating a somewhat offbeat approach to the genre. That said, the best twist comes in the final pages so you'll need to read it, if you enjoy this sort of story.
While mysteries aren't my first choice, great characters and plot matter and it's difficult to deny both are obvious here. Overall it's well paced, engaging and different but by no means stellar. Regardless I'll continue my journey with his stories since he's one of the more talented authors I've encountered.
Having read two of his latest stories of which both would be considered literature, I was ill prepared for a story about a small town Sheriff in NM.
As a USC professor of Literature and prolific black author, the only consistency with all three are black central characters which shows Everett loves genre variety. Here we are introduced to Sheriff Ogden who discovers a murder by mistake. Playing detective, clues begin to surface leading him down a twisted path. Unlike most mysteries, he chooses to leave the reader hanging and move on to another one.
What's interesting in this short novel is the variety of crimes, locations and characters demonstrating a somewhat offbeat approach to the genre. That said, the best twist comes in the final pages so you'll need to read it, if you enjoy this sort of story.
While mysteries aren't my first choice, great characters and plot matter and it's difficult to deny both are obvious here. Overall it's well paced, engaging and different but by no means stellar. Regardless I'll continue my journey with his stories since he's one of the more talented authors I've encountered.
December 15, 2017
I love Percival Everett's work, but I didn't understand this book. It's three crime stories that don't have connecting tissue except for they all involve Deputy Ogden Walker. The stories borrow and repurpose some material from at least one short story in Half an Inch of Water, except they take place in New Mexico and Colorado instead of Wyoming.
There is a twist at the end, but it didn't feel as if it made sense. No set-up and details in the story conflict with it.
I've looked at some other reviews and realize this problem may be my reading: I didn't understand something in the first two stories, and if I had, perhaps this would have made more sense to me. I didn't understand the end of the first one and something felt unresolved in the second one.
This is my ninth Percival Everett novel. I remain his devotee, but this book didn't work for me, and the problem may be mine rather the Everett's.
There is a twist at the end, but it didn't feel as if it made sense. No set-up and details in the story conflict with it.
I've looked at some other reviews and realize this problem may be my reading: I didn't understand something in the first two stories, and if I had, perhaps this would have made more sense to me. I didn't understand the end of the first one and something felt unresolved in the second one.
This is my ninth Percival Everett novel. I remain his devotee, but this book didn't work for me, and the problem may be mine rather the Everett's.
Read
May 30, 2022This book is actually three stories with Deputy Sheriff Ogden Walker as the protagonist. There are plenty of dead bodies.
Everett gets us to like Ogden (first name basis) as he does with all the main characters in his books. That makes what he does to Ogden in the final story peculiar to say the least. Not only did I not see it coming, I didn't understand it. Maybe that's why I didn't like the ending.
Still, as with anything Everett puts pen to, this was a damn good read. Damn good read.
Everett gets us to like Ogden (first name basis) as he does with all the main characters in his books. That makes what he does to Ogden in the final story peculiar to say the least. Not only did I not see it coming, I didn't understand it. Maybe that's why I didn't like the ending.
Still, as with anything Everett puts pen to, this was a damn good read. Damn good read.
October 8, 2011
Imagine, you're a fish on a hook. You swim away, you feel yourself being reeled in--you get some slack and feel as if you're getting away again. It's a slow, long process and the truth is that no one knows, not the fisherman and not yourself how it will all turn out.
You are the fish. Percival Everett is the fisherman. I won't ruin it for you but I'll tell you this much: the battle is fierce.
Assumption is three separate stories and also one single story at the same time. Look for the clues if you'd like but you probably won't understand them until you're mounted on a plaque in the writer's den.
The story is, at times, slow. It is, at times, aggravating in it's seemingly hasty conclusions. Then again, what do you know? You're just a fish.
If this review seems horribly cryptic I apologize, but it needs to be. I've already told you more than you need to know. It won't matter though. It's just a fly on the water waiting for you to bite. Read this book. I'd like to have some company up here on the wall.
You are the fish. Percival Everett is the fisherman. I won't ruin it for you but I'll tell you this much: the battle is fierce.
Assumption is three separate stories and also one single story at the same time. Look for the clues if you'd like but you probably won't understand them until you're mounted on a plaque in the writer's den.
The story is, at times, slow. It is, at times, aggravating in it's seemingly hasty conclusions. Then again, what do you know? You're just a fish.
If this review seems horribly cryptic I apologize, but it needs to be. I've already told you more than you need to know. It won't matter though. It's just a fly on the water waiting for you to bite. Read this book. I'd like to have some company up here on the wall.
March 25, 2012
Assumption is a very different novel in style, voice and ostensible subject than the other Everett novel I recently finished, Erasure: A Novel. It is at least as good, if not better, in my opinion. It's made up of three novella-length stories tied together by the character of Ogden Walker, a deputy sheriff in a rural New Mexico county, and the problem of finding out who we are.
I really can't talk about the book without spoilers. As other reviews have mentioned, everything you thought you understand from the first two stories is turned on its head.
In the two novels of Everett's I've read so far, one of my favorite aspects is that he doesn't lead the reader to a conclusion but leaves enough clues for you to work things out for yourself, if you want to take the trouble. If you don't, Assumption still works as a mystery (at least the first two stories).
Some might find the novel contrived but it worked for me so I'm going to recommend it even more strongly than Erasure.
I really can't talk about the book without spoilers. As other reviews have mentioned, everything you thought you understand from the first two stories is turned on its head.
In the two novels of Everett's I've read so far, one of my favorite aspects is that he doesn't lead the reader to a conclusion but leaves enough clues for you to work things out for yourself, if you want to take the trouble. If you don't, Assumption still works as a mystery (at least the first two stories).
Some might find the novel contrived but it worked for me so I'm going to recommend it even more strongly than Erasure.
November 19, 2020
This book Bloodman'd* me, or I could also say that it did the same twisty thing that made I'm Thinking of Ending Things such a disappointment because there's no way I'm trying to turn that title into a verb; basically this morphed from a series of vignettes about a hapless yet well-intentioned deputy sheriff investigating crimes and fly fishing on his off time into some sort of Secret Window, Secret Garden mind trick within the last two pages. Presumably there was a reason for the shift, but since the complete character reversal is explained in all of one paragraph at the end of the book, without going back to hunt for clues that other reviewers claim to be there, I'm left with no clear idea what that reason might have been. Two stars because I had been enjoying Ogden's particular ineffectuality at his job and the dry quality of the writing up until whatever that was happened.
* to Bloodman (v.) to destroy the reality of your entire book with a final, ridiculous twist
* to Bloodman (v.) to destroy the reality of your entire book with a final, ridiculous twist
November 11, 2011
Ogden Walker is a deputy sheriff in a New Mexico county so remote that if it were real instead of fictional, most westerners never would have heard of a single town. Ogden's averse to carrying a gun, doesn't consider himself much of an investigator and lacks a personal life, unless you count eating at his mother's house or trout fishing with one of his co-workers.
He finds himself entwined with several sets of killings that appear to be linked, but poor cooperation from associated low lifes, plus his laconic approach to the cases, doesn't yield much except an opportunity to chase gooses and get assaulted. Leads peter out and then new deaths arise just to confuse the whole business.
With its uneasy protagonist, degenerate characters, and mystifying events punctuated by unwitnessed violence, the novel fits the noir genre. Read it that way, and you'll probably be satisfied until you reach the end of the book and realize that the assumptions Everett's been exploiting are yours.
It's likely you'll read the final pages and think 1) I didn't see that coming; 2) Should I have seen that coming?; or 3) No fair.
I can't remember a novel I've re-read or would want to. There are too many good books still waiting on my list. But Percival Everett's ASSUMPTION really tempts me to have a second go.
He finds himself entwined with several sets of killings that appear to be linked, but poor cooperation from associated low lifes, plus his laconic approach to the cases, doesn't yield much except an opportunity to chase gooses and get assaulted. Leads peter out and then new deaths arise just to confuse the whole business.
With its uneasy protagonist, degenerate characters, and mystifying events punctuated by unwitnessed violence, the novel fits the noir genre. Read it that way, and you'll probably be satisfied until you reach the end of the book and realize that the assumptions Everett's been exploiting are yours.
It's likely you'll read the final pages and think 1) I didn't see that coming; 2) Should I have seen that coming?; or 3) No fair.
I can't remember a novel I've re-read or would want to. There are too many good books still waiting on my list. But Percival Everett's ASSUMPTION really tempts me to have a second go.
June 19, 2024
After watching the film, American Fiction, I was eager to read a Percival Everett book. Assumption was available at the NYPL and I enjoyed reading this fast-paced murder mystery. The main character, Deputy Sheriff Ogden Walker, is a cynical lawman who would rather be fly fishing than looking for missing persons who end up dead. While he traipses around the southwest from New Mexico to Colorado and Texas he is pursued by FBI agents and low life criminals.
Entertaining in its characterizations and pacing it unfortunately falls short in its conclusion. Despite this I find Percival Everett's writing quite engaging and have now started another of his books, So Much Blue, while I await one of his more recent well reviewed books, Trees, to become available.
Entertaining in its characterizations and pacing it unfortunately falls short in its conclusion. Despite this I find Percival Everett's writing quite engaging and have now started another of his books, So Much Blue, while I await one of his more recent well reviewed books, Trees, to become available.
September 4, 2024
Not sure the ending works in terms of what came before textually, but suspect his point would be my mistaken assumption is that it needs to…
July 3, 2024
Taut! Terse! Tense!
Quite the little yarn-spinning, pot-boiling murder mystery for fans of Clue. Agatha Christie? I don't know as I don't really dig the whodunnit genre. This, being Everett (and my being in love with him, obviously), transcends what limited exposure I have endured by the legitimacy of its primary characters being so fully formed. They walk-a the earth. Despite hooking what could have been a moonshot just to the right of the foul pole toward the end, it is still remarkable for the sliver of New Mexico mysterio it conjures.
So, more Dash Hammett than Mean Col. Mustard, more Tru Capote than a candlestick in the, I don't know, fucking foyer?
Quite the little yarn-spinning, pot-boiling murder mystery for fans of Clue. Agatha Christie? I don't know as I don't really dig the whodunnit genre. This, being Everett (and my being in love with him, obviously), transcends what limited exposure I have endured by the legitimacy of its primary characters being so fully formed. They walk-a the earth. Despite hooking what could have been a moonshot just to the right of the foul pole toward the end, it is still remarkable for the sliver of New Mexico mysterio it conjures.
So, more Dash Hammett than Mean Col. Mustard, more Tru Capote than a candlestick in the, I don't know, fucking foyer?
March 3, 2012
"Assumption" starts well. A former MP-turned deputy sheriff in New Mexico, Ogden Walker is a wry, reflective type. He makes fairly interesting company. He's also the only black male within his community, though one of the other deputies--Warren Fragua--is Native American. You learn about them and the place and the people the work with in a leisurely way. It seems like the set up for an interesting book, and the quality of writing is quite high. What looks like a novel is really made up of three novellas. The first two establish a sense of place and a sense of the main characters, including the sheriff, Bucky Fraz. The first one ends rather abruptly after a decent start; the second one has a more or less complete story arc. The third part of the book makes no sense at all given what you've been told about Walker earlier. It is as though there were four or five missing novellas that chart his growing psychological unraveling because, when it happens, there is absolutely no preparation for the fact. How does a seemingly normal person descend into madness without leaving a trace of his condition? Did Everett just get tired of the setting and people? Whatever the reason, the last third pulled the foundation out from under the first two-thirds of the book.
November 7, 2017
It would be hard to review this book without giving away its delicious secrets, so i'll only say it's a wild ride. A rare if not solitary example of noir but with metaphysical elements that keeps the reader guessing. Ogden is a wonderful creation -- attempting to do his job as deputy in a remote New Mexico county while solving baffling incomprehensible crimes as well as the local bigotry. Dialogue that snaps with cinematic reality. Not a little humor that spikes unexpectedly. Liked this one a lot.
February 18, 2012
The most disturbing of all of the Percival Everett books I've read. Disturbing can sometimes be a good thing.
I never know what to expect when I open one of Mr. Everett's books for the first time, and he always surprises me.
I never know what to expect when I open one of Mr. Everett's books for the first time, and he always surprises me.
September 15, 2015
Ok, what....was that? At first I thought it was a mystery, just better written. Then that it was undermining certain features of mysteries, the whole idea that a thing can be solved, resolved, explained, which I guess it still kind of is. Then the end happened.
November 4, 2023
Each of the three books by Everett I have read (Glyph and Erasure) is completely different. This author is never boring and can dazzle at will. Here, in three vignettes starring young deputy Ogden Walker in rural New Mexico, Everett does not feel like dazzling so much as becoming a full fledged mystery writer (a genre I respect) and shows he can deliver.
In one story Ogden encounters a strung out suspect living in an old abandoned hippie era yurt now colonized by meth users,
"'Look at me", - held his arms up. "What can you do to me that matters, motherfucker? If you beat me up, I'll probably feel better."
The three stories are gritty but tender, he and his buddy are thoughtful people who could happily spend all day tying their own elaborate flies and going trout fishing. Only they are part of a community and the world, and wouldn't feel right sloughing off that responsibility, even if they are not sure that being policemen is the best path.
The third story eluded me, but I like being eluded so there you go.
In one story Ogden encounters a strung out suspect living in an old abandoned hippie era yurt now colonized by meth users,
"'Look at me", - held his arms up. "What can you do to me that matters, motherfucker? If you beat me up, I'll probably feel better."
The three stories are gritty but tender, he and his buddy are thoughtful people who could happily spend all day tying their own elaborate flies and going trout fishing. Only they are part of a community and the world, and wouldn't feel right sloughing off that responsibility, even if they are not sure that being policemen is the best path.
The third story eluded me, but I like being eluded so there you go.
April 5, 2024
As with all Everett books, you think you know what’s happening but then you don’t. It’s a slippery, strange, genre-upending detective novel. No one is writing like Everett.
January 26, 2012
Assumption is three short stories featuring the same setting and characters, and the ending of the third story casts enough of a shadow over the main character as to make you rethink what happened in the first two stories. This last feature, I guess, is what makes this a novel. If you like. Or just call it three stories. Or look to the title and realize Percival Everett is messing with you.
Percival Everett likes to mess with you. Go read Erasure, or American Desert. I normally don't approve of that kind of extra-textual criticism, but I'll be honest, Assumption left me scratching my head. So I'm looking at Everett's other characters to try and figure out what's going on. He likes to write about Invisible Men (the Ellison kind) and while I apologize for lumping together two writers who are both black, I can at least tell you that for Everett it's not just a matter of race. It might be a matter of class, or profession, or even location. And race, too. People who are pigeonholed just as soon as they're regarded, and everything they do contextualized by that label.
For what it's worth, Thomas Berger does that too in the aptly titled Being Invisible, but in Assumption, the main character does not, in the end, play to type. It's an abrupt revelation, and like I said, it forces the reader to reconsider everything that's been read up to that point.
And it's told in Everett's easy style. The prose is plain, almost sparse, and it flows without any apparent effort, matching Assumption's setting in the New Mexico countryside and the (alleged) simple way of life out there. This, too, is part of Everett's oeuvre, these tales told in a place we city folk would call out in the middle of nowhere. Horses and pick-up trucks, shotguns and rattlesnakes. What westerns would be if no one bothered to label books with genres at all.
The thing is, I read a book by Percival Everett by random chance a long time ago, and since then I've been hooked. As soon as I saw Assumption on the shelves, I picked it up without question. And once again he's satisfied. I'd like to encourage you to read Assumption, but I'm only doing so because I think you should try all of what Everett's written. Even if you're not into any kind of meta-textual analysis, I think you'll enjoy his stuff.
Percival Everett likes to mess with you. Go read Erasure, or American Desert. I normally don't approve of that kind of extra-textual criticism, but I'll be honest, Assumption left me scratching my head. So I'm looking at Everett's other characters to try and figure out what's going on. He likes to write about Invisible Men (the Ellison kind) and while I apologize for lumping together two writers who are both black, I can at least tell you that for Everett it's not just a matter of race. It might be a matter of class, or profession, or even location. And race, too. People who are pigeonholed just as soon as they're regarded, and everything they do contextualized by that label.
For what it's worth, Thomas Berger does that too in the aptly titled Being Invisible, but in Assumption, the main character does not, in the end, play to type. It's an abrupt revelation, and like I said, it forces the reader to reconsider everything that's been read up to that point.
And it's told in Everett's easy style. The prose is plain, almost sparse, and it flows without any apparent effort, matching Assumption's setting in the New Mexico countryside and the (alleged) simple way of life out there. This, too, is part of Everett's oeuvre, these tales told in a place we city folk would call out in the middle of nowhere. Horses and pick-up trucks, shotguns and rattlesnakes. What westerns would be if no one bothered to label books with genres at all.
The thing is, I read a book by Percival Everett by random chance a long time ago, and since then I've been hooked. As soon as I saw Assumption on the shelves, I picked it up without question. And once again he's satisfied. I'd like to encourage you to read Assumption, but I'm only doing so because I think you should try all of what Everett's written. Even if you're not into any kind of meta-textual analysis, I think you'll enjoy his stuff.
April 24, 2019
The first thing you need to know is that I am a sucker for that particular kind of good writing that doesn't draw attention to how good it is. Which is to say that I am a fan of Percival Everett's writing, which is not only exactly this kind of writing, but is also humane and compassionate in its characterizations. Each character is presented with such compassion that they feel complex and real. Which is to say that before I even opened Assumption, I was all in.
Assumption follows Ogden Walker, deputy sheriff in a largely empty rural county in the mountains of New Mexico. He loves fly fishing, visits his mother a lot and doesn't really like his job, but it does allow him to live where he wants to live. When an elderly woman is murdered moments after Ogden last spoke to her, it seems he'll have to do some real police work, as the case turns increasingly violent.
Assumption reads as though it's a standard noir-style crime novel. It's gritty and violent, but Ogden himself is a steady, if not particularly enthusiastic, lawman who treats the people he encounters with respect. As I read, I fell into reading it as something it only appeared to be on the surface. While Everett here demonstrates that he can write a perfect genre novel, that isn't what he's doing and, eventually, he tips his hand and upends his entire narrative. We're all familiar with an unreliable narrator, but this takes it further. I'm not sure yet what to make of what Everett does here. I plan to give it all time to settle and then reread the novel, in view of what I now know.
Assumption follows Ogden Walker, deputy sheriff in a largely empty rural county in the mountains of New Mexico. He loves fly fishing, visits his mother a lot and doesn't really like his job, but it does allow him to live where he wants to live. When an elderly woman is murdered moments after Ogden last spoke to her, it seems he'll have to do some real police work, as the case turns increasingly violent.
Assumption reads as though it's a standard noir-style crime novel. It's gritty and violent, but Ogden himself is a steady, if not particularly enthusiastic, lawman who treats the people he encounters with respect. As I read, I fell into reading it as something it only appeared to be on the surface. While Everett here demonstrates that he can write a perfect genre novel, that isn't what he's doing and, eventually, he tips his hand and upends his entire narrative. We're all familiar with an unreliable narrator, but this takes it further. I'm not sure yet what to make of what Everett does here. I plan to give it all time to settle and then reread the novel, in view of what I now know.
March 11, 2012
Checked this one out a long time ago, and have been re-checking it out since then. When I finally picked it up to read it, I read the whole thing in a day. (Insert witty and/or saccharine phrase about how life is sometimes that way. Maybe compare it to a box of chocolates.)
This book is bleak. But not so much that you'd mind. It's Noir, there's murder, there's conspiracy, there's a whole lot of lying. But there's also a general air of country geniality. The guys in the Sheriff's department have a decent camaraderie even when they find dead bodies.
The format is that of three novellas, though the main character remains the same throughout. He is Ogden Walker, a sheriff's deputy in a small New Mexico town. Ogden keeps running into trouble, and that trouble seems to snowball.
The title is a big arrow pointing to a main theme in detective stories: The assumptions we make about people can get us into hot water. And they can get us killed.
By the end you discover that instead of a mystery, what you've been reading is a character study. How can living among senseless violence affect a man surrounded by empty desert? Read to find out.
This book is bleak. But not so much that you'd mind. It's Noir, there's murder, there's conspiracy, there's a whole lot of lying. But there's also a general air of country geniality. The guys in the Sheriff's department have a decent camaraderie even when they find dead bodies.
The format is that of three novellas, though the main character remains the same throughout. He is Ogden Walker, a sheriff's deputy in a small New Mexico town. Ogden keeps running into trouble, and that trouble seems to snowball.
The title is a big arrow pointing to a main theme in detective stories: The assumptions we make about people can get us into hot water. And they can get us killed.
By the end you discover that instead of a mystery, what you've been reading is a character study. How can living among senseless violence affect a man surrounded by empty desert? Read to find out.
June 16, 2011
Percival Everett is one of the most intriguing novelists writing today. His greatest work, Erasure, is a brilliant send-up of race, media and the publishing world. It's a literary masterpiece featuring a remarkable novel within a novel.
Assumption is a set of three stories about Ogden Walker, a deputy in rural New Mexico. On the surface they are straight ahead mystery tales. Ogden searches for the murderer of an old woman in one, uncovers a deadly prositution ring in another and finally goes out in search of a drug addict in the third.
Each tale is crisply told with engaging supporting characters. I'm not much of a mystery reader so I didn't always follow Ogden's reasoning on each case. Some of his leads just seem like hair-brained ideas. Race is brought up in an understated way in these stories. There aren't too many African Americans in New Mexico and Ogden draws his share of looks.
In the third story, the book goes magnificently awry. The reader begins to realize that perhaps Ogden isn't quite the man we've come to believe that he is. I don't want to give much away, but I will say that once you finish the book, you may want to go back to the beginning to see if perhaps there's a different interpretation of the first two stories.
Assumption is a set of three stories about Ogden Walker, a deputy in rural New Mexico. On the surface they are straight ahead mystery tales. Ogden searches for the murderer of an old woman in one, uncovers a deadly prositution ring in another and finally goes out in search of a drug addict in the third.
Each tale is crisply told with engaging supporting characters. I'm not much of a mystery reader so I didn't always follow Ogden's reasoning on each case. Some of his leads just seem like hair-brained ideas. Race is brought up in an understated way in these stories. There aren't too many African Americans in New Mexico and Ogden draws his share of looks.
In the third story, the book goes magnificently awry. The reader begins to realize that perhaps Ogden isn't quite the man we've come to believe that he is. I don't want to give much away, but I will say that once you finish the book, you may want to go back to the beginning to see if perhaps there's a different interpretation of the first two stories.
November 24, 2012
I've yet to read a page that Everett has published that I didn't find enthralling (I've read Erasure, Wounded, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier in addition to this one). This book had me just as abjectly addicted as the rest, even if it doesn't seem to have quite the same scope as those other books; it delves somewhat less into social questions, perhaps (or maybe I just lack the imagination to see how it does it?). But it's fascinating how slippery identity gets in these three connecting, deceptively complicated stories. And the ending packs as much punch as the ending to Wounded, which is saying something. Lesson for detectives: always check everyone's ID.
October 30, 2011
I guess that it's not giving too much away, if I talk about the title. Or maybe it is. I totally forgot about the title while I was reading about three cases being investigated by Deputy Ogden Walker, and then I realized after I finished that I maybe shouldn't have totally ignored the title as clue. Or maybe it was OK to ignore it, because I really enjoyed reading this until the second to the last page, when it really took me off guard and became kind of a shocker. I may have to read it over again to fully understand my own assumptions.
January 1, 2012
What just happened? That's the feeling you will have at the end of this book. You are left confused by what you are read, highly dissatisfied with the wind up and then desperate to figure it all out.
This book is a combination of the noir tales of Elmore Leonard and the frontier whodunit of No Country for Old Men.
The stories in the book seem unrelated and are well written with spare and amusing language (think Pulp Fiction). This book is great...the first I've read from Mr Everett. It won't be the last.
This book is a combination of the noir tales of Elmore Leonard and the frontier whodunit of No Country for Old Men.
The stories in the book seem unrelated and are well written with spare and amusing language (think Pulp Fiction). This book is great...the first I've read from Mr Everett. It won't be the last.
December 7, 2012
Two-thirds really engaging and strong, with great characters and a deadpan, spare narration I enjoyed immensely (as I have in other fiction by Everett). But it fell apart for me at the end, which relied on a clichéd device without complicating it enough to be satisfying or surprising in a way as meaningful (to me, at least) as the story had earned.
July 2, 2012
felt kinda let down at the end. i mean, okay, i get it and everything, but i don't think it actually worked. did make me want to read more percival everett, though, so i guess it worked perfectly on that level.
July 15, 2020
Inventive, absorbing, and ultimately genuinely harrowing. You have never read a crime novel quite like it.
July 20, 2022
clever
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 227 reviews