This week on On Story, a conversation with Cord Jefferson on adapting the novel Erasure into his strikingly sharp debut feature American Fiction.

Cord Jefferson is an Emmy-winning writer who earned his chops on some of television’s most formative shows in recent years: Master of None, The Good Place, Succession, and Watchmen. His debut feature, American Fiction, won the Audience Award at the 30th annual Austin Film Festival.  

American Fiction is an adaptation of Percival Everett’s novel Erasure. The film introduces us to Thelonius Monk, played by Jeffrey Wright, a weary writer frustrated by the publishing industry’s obsession with reducing artists of color into stereotypes. In an effort to show the industry its own foolishness, Monk offers up a pandering manuscript that, much to his chagrin, becomes wildly successful.

Cord discusses bringing his own perspective and sense of humor to the source material, and marrying comedy and drama in one film.

Clips of American Fiction courtesy of Amazon/MGM Studios.