James (Pulitzer Prize Winner): A Novel

James Percival Everett 2024 - Doubleday Is this really the best of all possible worlds? ‘Cause frankly, this world kind of sucks! I was born in Missouri. As a teenager, I grew up in northeast Missouri, in a small town called Milan, a two-hour drive from the Mississippi River. I once dated a guy from Edina, which is just due south of Memphis, where my favorite brother currently lives. Both towns have some complicated histories with slavery. Frankly, most of North Missouri does. For all of the talk of the southern half of the state being the “Little Dixie” part of Missouri, things weren’t that much different up close to the Iowa border. I heard stories growing up and knew the tales of Mark Twain. What might have once been a scandal to the fine folk of Missouri is now embraced as part of our culture! Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn evoke proud nostalgia for a past full of boyhood pranks and adventures. Hannibal has practically built an entire tourist industry off of it. What no one talks about, however, is the very dark face of what built those stories and that heritage they now embrace so fervently. And yes, I mean that in both senses of the word. James, the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel by Percival Everett, dives into that darkness and says the quiet part out loud. It is so much more than a retelling of Twain’s classic story from the perspective of the slave, Jim, it is both a picaresque novel in its own right, while at the same time serving as a loud critique not only of its source material, but how we conveniently ignore the stories of the suffering and indignation of those around us because we don’t focus on them. When the light is turned on, we see a whole different world, revealing that how we think the world works is not how it works at all. Jim is a slave, owned by Miss Watson, one of the guardians for young Huckleberry Finn. His survival depends on his ability to act and present himself to the white world as just what they expect him to be. He speaks in broken, vernacular English, he affects a supernatural fear of the world, and pretends he is an ignorant black slave, unthreatening and harmless. It is an affectation Jim and his fellow slaves put on to survive, knowing that if they ever break it, their white masters will see it as a threat, and it could mean their lives. Yet, when he arrives in the safety of his home with his wife and daughter, Jim code-switches to speak with them in standard English, displaying that far from being ignorant, he is a cultured, well-spoken, well-read man, who looks to philosophy to give him some sort of answer for the reasons why the world is the way it is, only to find that the philosophy of the educated white man is empty and meaningless for a man who has always been enslaved. It is when Sadie overhears that Miss Watson is contemplating selling Jim that his world is shattered, and he decides to flee in the hopes of escaping his enslavement and maybe, just maybe, getting his wife and daughter out. It is while he is on the run that he happens upon Huck, who is himself escaping Miss Watson, though for very different reasons. Huck is himself also attempting to understand the world and why it is the way it is, especially for slaves, and looks to Jim for answers. This forces Jim to further contemplate the nature of identity and power and how those with the power chip away at the identities of those they subjugate to keep their stranglehold on them. As Jim and Huck venture down the Mississippi, their adventures reveal more and more of the nature of what it means to be black and what it means to be white in the world. As Jim comes into his own, Huck, too, has to accept hard truths, as Jim urges the young boy to make free choices and to see himself as a free man. It is with this in mind that James now claims his own identity, no longer fearing or being bound by the shackles of white expectations, but claiming himself and his family as his right. Everett’s retelling of what has been called the “great American story” is daring, and it lives up to the audacity of even trying. Far from the caricature of a slave that is the Jim of Twain’s novel, James is a full-fleshed out man, who has claimed what human dignity he could he a world that expects him to behave differently. He’s educated himself and his community, he has a family, and a mysterious past that is only barely explained in the ending, one that makes him so tantalizingly relatable and…well, human. And this is the key to the heart of the story. Of course, James is human, but under the systems of racism and slavery in America, Jim was not. This leads to the performative existence, this split identity (or dual consciousness, if you will), between the true self and the self of the colonizer, this dance between who I feel I am and who they expect me to be. As James makes his way down the Mississippi with Huck, that identity only becomes more complicated, as he sees the experiences of other enslaved people, and their dehumanization, and how the systems are rigged to continue that dehumanization, no matter who is at the wheel. Freedom is not an identity that can be given to James; he has to take it and claim it, to make a choice to be free. Media of late has decried several anti-slavery television shows and films exploring slavery, reveling in the horror of it for the shock value, overriding the very real message they say they are trying to express. Everett does not stoop to this level. James’s experiences feel truthful; he is seeing the everyday slights, humiliations, and tortures of so many other slaves for no other reason than being black, and thus, property, not truly human. Even those few people who claim they are “enlightened” and forward-thinking are not to be trusted. The minute their superiority as whites is questioned, the punishment comes. This dance for James underscores the African American experience in America, the inability they have always had to just be completely themselves, as whole people, accepted for who and what they are, because that existence is seen as threatening to the whites who hold the reins of power. For all of the darkness of slavery that James explores, the story also has its humor and its powerful insight. Huck’s childish observations are still as amusing in Everett’s expert hands as they were in Twain's (Everett is himself a very funny raconteur), and provide a lighter grounding in the world. As a child, Huck explores these harder truths with the wide-eyed innocence of youth, even as he struggles to make sense of the senseless. James himself is not without a sense of sardonic humor, particularly in his observations of irony, satire, and the puffed-up vanity of the so-called “better” whites, notably Judge Thatcher. His conversations with the likes of John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau are both cheeky and philosophical, most notably, Voltaire, whose novel, Candide, clearly influenced how Everett shaped this book. James argues vociferously with each in his dreams and hallucinations, noting that each of these men was born white and free. How could they possibly understand what it is to feel the lash or know inhumanity? His most pointed argument is with Voltaire directly, a man who spoke of the freedom of men, and yet believed in a racial hierarchy. These sequences not only allow us to see James’s inner philosophical life, but they let us see his wit and intellect, especially as we see him making his points. Even with Cunégonde’s warning ringing in his ears, knowing that the system is rigged against him ever being completely free, James makes free choices as a completely actualized man, who chooses who he wants to be and no longer allows for others to define who he is - not his enslavers, not white society, and not Mark Twain, either. If the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a story of poor, white childhood, James is its grown-up counterpart, the half of the story that Huck, in all of his childish, self-centered naivete, could not see. It is a nimble, funny, powerful exploration of what the other half of that great American novel was all about, the untold story of the man who was created to play before a polite, white audience. Jim was a mere caricature in Huck’s story. James is a fully realized man, one who has a voice and a mind, for all that the structures of whiteness and power have tried to strip him of it. While he will always be black, he no longer has to play at being what society tells him he is. He can now make the free choice to be himself.

Percival Everett's James is a rarity: A buzzy literary novel that absolutely lives up to (and possibly exceeds) the hype. I wouldn't be surprised if James came away with both the 2024 Man Booker and the Pulitzer Prize for Literature. The setup for James almost sounds like a gimmick — it's a retelling of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn written from the perspective of Jim, the escaped slave who accompanies Huck on his journey down the Mississippi River. But Jim is so much more than a mere runaway, and author Percival Everett employs a fascinating usage of dialect that challenges the classic "slave vernacular" questionably used by writers like Twain in the 19th century. Written in a clear and accessible prose and propelled by an episodic narrative structure, James often reads like a thriller and avoids the pretentious literary stylings so common in the genre. Percival Everett also does a masterful job blending tone — despite the intensity of the subject matter, there were multiple times when I laughed out loud. But James doesn't shy away from the horrors of chattel slavery, and while the violence is never gratuitous, the resigned matter-of-fact depictions of the institution's inherent psychological and physical cruelty hits just as hard as any graphic blow-by-blow account. Additionally, throughout Jim's travels, he encounters various personalities who provide the opportunity for rich discussions on the southern mindset toward slavery at the time. Funny and bleak, adventurous and timely, James is a brilliant reimagining of an American classic that ranks as one of the very best books of the year. It's both a respectful homage and instructive critique of the source material, while also daring to tell its own unique story. Note: Do you have to have read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to enjoy James? I don't think so. Though I haven't read Huck Finn, I do have a passing familiarity with the story from watching the 1993 live-action Disney adaptation starring a young Elijah Wood. But James is designed to stand on its own (and, besides, its not a true 1:1 companion piece). However, I think James is so good — and offers such a canon-busting take on a beloved classic — that I'd love to see it incorporated in high school curriculum alongside Huck Finn

What an exceptional idea. This novel is a (sort of) retelling of Huck Finn, but from Jim's perspective. The reason I say 'sort of' is because you will recognize some characters and moments from Huck Finn, but there are also some major deviations. There is also one incredible plot twist, and while I don't want to ruin it, I will say it's why I gave it four stars instead of five...I feel like the plot twist wasn't really complete in some way. I wanted/needed more. In this telling, Jim is such an interesting character...one who both fights against the system to which he's been born, and succumbs to its cruelty in some ways. He is both brilliant and biting and contradictory in so many ways. Jim yearns to be James, the more complete version of himself...but how do you achieve that without agency? There are moments of dark humor, tenderness, rage, and confusion. Ultimately, James is a portrait of a man trying to be a man, when his environment sees him as less than human. In some ways I am reminded of Frankenstein's creature and a question of that book: can someone be good when treated so monstrously?

Percival Everett reimagines—no, inverts-- the classic saga of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn that resides in every American’s consciousness. Huck Finn and enslaved Jim’s adventures have been in print for 140 years. If you didn’t read it in American schools, you’ve likely still been affected by its content. Everett reappropriates that story, turns it upside down and inside out, and leans formidably forward by making this a story and POV of Jim, with Huck at his side. I am in awe and in thorough admiration of Percival Everett’s skills and fierce talent. My personal favorites, The Trees (shortlisted for Booker in 2022), and Telephone (a finalist for the Pulitzer in 2021) combine laconic protagonists, subversive wit, and tragic events. In James, he has made Twain’s classic his own historical fiction, and I applaud it as the contemporary bookend of Twain’s classic. He improves upon it by giving Jim agency. I predict that they will be teaching both books side by side in the coming years. “White folks expect us to sound a certain way and it can only help if we don’t disappoint them…The only ones who suffer when they are made to feel inferior is us.” This is Jim, teaching his daughter and other enslaved children a lesson in coded speech. Although they speak eloquently amongst themselves, they communicate submissively to the white folks, which enhances their survival in a world where they are nothing but chattel. It also illuminates their intelligence as they hide (linguistically) in broad daylight from their ignorant “massas.” Additionally, the enslaved people pretend that God and Jesus are primary in their lives, when in actuality, as Jim states, regarding white folks, “religion is just a controlling tool they employ and adhere to when convenient.” If there really was a God and a Jesus, why would they allow white people to enslave Black people? Is this the kind of world that any God intended? As in Twain’s original, Jim and Huck run off together from Hannibal, Missouri and ride the Mississippi River, beginning in a raft. The main plotline of the original text is captured, but comically and dramatically turned on its head. Jim leads a double life—one that he owns, and one that meets white people’s expectations. In fact, there are those that are more threatened by a Black man with eloquence than they are by a Black man with a pistol. Intelligence is Jim’s stunning subterfuge. He has a rich interior life, and in dreams, he debates slavery and philosophy with the likes of Voltaire, Rousseau, and John Locke. As an autodidact who enriched himself in Judge Thatcher’s library, Jim spends stealth nights in there poring over the judge’s books. His quick wit, thoughtful compassion, and deep humanity also become his ammunition in a hostile world. As the plot progresses, Jim and Huck grow closer, and more revelations are gradually disclosed. The major twist is foreshadowed early on, so it doesn’t come out of nowhere, and it changes the complexion of the story. As others have already noted, this is the novel that Everett was born to write. In his hands, his heart.

I promised myself I wouldn’t dive into any more space horror stories, but “Julia,” Sandra Newman’s retelling of Orwell’s 1984 from Julia’s point of view, completely swept me up. Naturally, when I saw James hit the shelves—a reimagining of Huck Finn through Jim’s eyes—I couldn’t resist. I was curious, but also wary, because I knew this story would be as psychologically traumatic as I feared. And I wasn’t wrong. Reading James is a deeply personal experience, especially as a Black woman, knowing that the only thing separating me from that nightmare of slavery is the year I was born. The narrative forced me to confront the reality that my great-grandparents and countless others who share my skin color endured this hellscape. It's more than just history—it's a stark reminder that they were treated as "it," less than animals, mere property. This is the kind of story that takes a physical toll on me every time I bear witness to it, but at the same time, it's necessary. One of the things I found most powerful was how James fills in the emotional and psychological blanks left by Huckleberry Finn. In Everett’s hands, Jim is more than just a loyal protector or a man enslaved. The inner thoughts and eventual confession he shares go beyond the brutality of slavery, offering an explanation for why he’s so devoted to Huck. This complexity and depth made the retelling masterful—it's still settling with me, but I can already say it was absolutely worth the read. Another aspect that haunted me was the subtle but consistent pattern Everett weaved through the story—everyone who helped Jim, except Huck, met a tragic end. It’s hard to tell if it was a coincidence or a chilling reflection of how dangerous it was to aid a Black person back then, but either way, it made clear just how easily Black lives were discarded. That’s a stark, painful truth to digest. Percival Everett’s writing is as sharp and introspective as ever, breathing new life into a character who has long been a symbol but rarely fully understood. His retelling connects a lot of plot points and unspoken questions from Huckleberry Finn in ways that are satisfying, thought-provoking, and deeply unsettling. It's one of those stories that will stay with you long after you've closed the book.

Excellent read, I enjoyed this book and couldn’t but it down. The story of James is interesting and fascinating on his journey. I would highly recommend.

Rich, layered story with poignant narration. The only reason it lost a star for me was the unevenness in the density of the words. There were parts where the book rambles (e.g., various escapes) and yet there are parts where the book doesn’t build with enough depth (e.g., Jim’s mental anguish.) Almost there but not quite still.

This book is brilliant. It is beautifully written. But there is much more to it than that. Besides its Pulitzer prize-winning story, I would recommend this book to anyone (especially white people, as I am) who would like to gain some understanding of racism and slavery from the point of view of a Black person (there is *always* more to learn) and also learn more about themselves in the process. I thought I had come to understand a great deal in my 78 years, yet this book gave me so much more, even though I know that there are things that, as a white person, I can never truly understand. Some of my realizations were -painful-but I consider that to actually be a good thing, because they still don't compare to the pain a Black person would (and often does) experience--even today. My appreciation, empathy, insight, and understanding have deepened, and for that I am grateful. Thank you, Mr Everett !

Insightful, witty and, at times, damn funny in spite of the horrific tragedy of American slaves that the author has portrayed in this wonderfully worded book. An exceptionally great author.

This captivating work of black literature is a must-read for everyone, young and old alike. Its brilliance resonates across generations and invites all minds to explore its profound themes and messages.

As described

Excellent and thought provoking retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain through the eyes of a key character, James (Jim), a slave.

Book well-wrapped and well-received. Thanks and looking forward to read.