Local Oscar Buzz

A small group of people locally will be watching the Academy Awards this Sunday with a certain sense of ownership. They’ll be rooting for American Fiction in the five categories in which it’s been nominated: Best Picture, Best Actor, Best Supporting Actor, Best Score, and Best Adapted Screenplay. It’s this last category that provides a direct, if extremely slender, thread of connection to the movie.

Over twenty years ago the group—Gerry Stoner, Ellen Thorn, Linda Stratigos,, and myself, Terry Bradshaw—worked together at Generic Compositors in Gilboa, typesetting books for university presses. One project at the time was the novel Erasure by Percival Everett. My part in the process was to input the manuscript corrections. Some sections of the text were so funny, I’d read them aloud and we’d practically all fall off our chairs laughing. That book is the basis for the movie American Fiction.

We all found Erasure a remarkable tale then; we thoroughly enjoyed the movie, and we’ll be watching on Sunday, popcorn in hand, hoping the Academy agrees with us.