Advice from a critic: Read 'Erasure' before seeing 'American Fiction'

Satire is hard; parody even harder. Satires that take on race and the politics of art — those are the thorniest. The much lauded PEN winner and Booker Prize shortlisted author Percival Everett is genuinely a master of all of the above.

Scathing, funny, and prescient, 20 years after its initial release Erasure remains one of the American literary giant's most striking and beloved works.It's a novel of ideas in conversation with other cultural touchstones and has attracted a legion of well-placed admirers, Acclaimed author Brandon Taylor (Real Life, The Late Americans) has long credited Erasure with indelibly influencing his career. Now Erasure is also the inspiration for Emmy-winning "Watchmen" TV writer Cord Jefferson's first feature film American Fiction.

With the first Everett-inspired screen adaptation American Fiction coming to theaters starting on Dec. 15, we're taking a moment to revisit the provocative and affecting satire.

Though long skittish about Hollywood, with Everett trusted Jefferson to both adapt and direct one of his most challenging works. That. was in production but not yet titled or acquired for distribution. At the time, Everett confessed a newfound excitement about the potential for screen adaptations of his work, his sentiments reflecting how Hollywood itself was shifting, noting: "in the last four or five years as this generation of young black artists are popping up, the people interested in making and adapting work has changed. It used to be 60-year old white guys looking to option something. And now it's these young people who are interested in art and not commerce."