James is Percival Everett’s retelling of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from James’ (Jim’s) perspective.
After learning he’s to be sold and forced to leave his family, James runs away. Jim is the name he’s been given by his white owner; his peers know him by his more formal name. Huck fakes his own death to avoid further beatings by his father and discovers Jim in hiding. The two make their way down the Mississippi River, each with different goals in mind.
There’s a reward for James’s capture, and he worries he’s suspected of Huck’s “death.”
While this has Twain’s classic as its foundation, the architecture is all Everett’s. James speaks in the vernacular associated with slaves when spoken to by slave owners and other white people. However, among each other, slaves converse in perfect English, that’s not only grammatically correct but rich in vocabulary. James also knows how to read, as do many in his circle.
Occasionally, he slips in a word that Huck doesn’t know but quickly makes its clear he’s misspoken, when, in fact, James hasn’t.
The book is full of irony, humor and sadness. In their travels they encounter kindness, brutality and fear. At one point the pair is briefly separated and James fares well, including, ironically, being recruited by a minstrel group and is befriended by another black man who passes for white.
Like its predecessor, this is an adventure story but more profoundly addresses still existing racial inequities and social injustice.
James
Four bookmarks
Doubleday, 2024
303 pages
The Blue Page Special 