This "American fiction" marks Cord Jefferson's directorial debut. An excellent debut. The central theme of this film is the fact that the protagonist "Monk" (Jeffrey Wright in a brilliant performance) considers that books by and about black people should be equally universal as are "white books". He ("Monk"), a writer going through a difficult phase in terms of writing and having financial difficulties, is tired of the themes in books about black people that "sell" well being always the same and not having such thematic universality that he claims, because for him, the "universe of blacks" is much broader than the half-dozen themes explored in so-called "books about blacks". So he decides, in a night of anger, alcohol and irritation, to write a book that "gives" what the public wants and consumes, one of those "stereotypical" stories about the "black world". He does this using a pseudonym so that no one knows his identity. To his surprise, the book soon became a success, a "best-seller" and ended up being nominated for best book of the year in a competition in which he himself was invited to be one of the jury members. The narrative and development of the film has some irregularities due to the way in which other stories appear, such as Monk's relationship with his family: the homosexual brother, the sister who dies suddenly and the mother who begins to suffer from Alzheimer's disease. There is also the love relationship that "Monk" begins with Coraline and also the character of Sintara Golden, a writer who is "in fashion" due to having written a very successful book and who is also part of the jury. These "small" stories don't have much development but they are reasonably well done, with the exception of "Monk's" relationship with Sintara Golden, which deserved further development. It's a shame that this "relationship" isn't further explored in the film, as it promised to be. It is perhaps the only point where the film fails. In addition to all this, the film presents well-executed dialogue scenes, most of which are very funny, with a satirical and intelligent humor. The ending of the film is ambiguous, I've read people who said that the director didn't know how the film would end. Maybe, but I even thought the ending was well done, the "dream" (?) scene in which the police enter the ceremony for the book of the year award and massacre "Monk" with gunfire is an anthology. In short, a film that proves to be extremely intelligent in its proposed theme.