Assumption
Percival Everett
21 March 2024
9781035036417Synopsis
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 takes 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.
All we can do is hang on and go along for the intellectually stimulating and genre-bending ride, in which bodies and assumptions fall quickly by the waysideNPR
[Assumption] is a quick, bracing and ultimately enigmatic work about the deception of appearances—anything we take for granted, Mr. Everett means to show us, may turn out to be a lieThe Wall Street Journal
Everett, who has put his uniquely wacky spin on genres from Greek myths to westerns, does the same for crime fiction in his effective follow-up to I Am Not Sidney Poitier. . . . [A] shocking tale.Publishers Weekly
