James - Purcival Everett

 

 Purcival Everett's James begins as a reimagining of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told this time through the eyes of the man Huck loves to torment with his practical jokes, Miss Watson's slave Jim. For about half the book, that's exactly what James delivers as readers find themselves immersed in the familiar world created by Twain in his classic novel. That's all interesting and kind of fun, but then Everett abandon's Twain's plotting and completely changes the tone and nature of James. And abandoning what has always seemed to me to be the much weaker half of Twain's novel, along with Twain's farcical tone, and suddenly shifting to a serious and more realistic tone to tell the rest of Jim's story works brilliantly. 

Right from the first page, James promises to be fun, especially for those readers familiar with the Twain novel. 

"Those little bastards were hiding out there, in the tall grass...Those white boys, Huck and Tom, watched me. They were always playing some kind of pretending game where I was either a villain or prey, but certainly their toy...It always pays to give white folks what they want, so I stepped into the yard and called out into the night."

 Jim, who calls himself James and holds night classes to teach the slave children how to speak the Black dialect that white people expect to hear them speak, is almost exactly the opposite of what Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn think he is. Jim, a self-taught reader and philosopher, is every bit as brilliant as the boys believe he is stupid and childlike. That's the plan - and it works really well for Jim and his family right up until the moment that Jim learns he is about to be separated from his wife and daughter by being sold separately to a new owner.

Then all bets are off - and the novel really takes off.

James becomes much darker in tone - and in content - as Jim desperately tries to survive on the run long enough to rescue his wife and daughter from bondage at least long enough for them to make a northward run for freedom together. Jim, with some help from Huck when he needs it most, will still have to risk everything if he is to succeed in his quest to free himself and his family for good. This half of the book also features a "Big Reveal" that although not entirely unexpected at the point it finally arrives, will still delight most readers with its audacity.

James is likely to go down as one of the better known books coming out of 2024, and it will probably be considered for more than one literary prize along the way. I do think it will read differently for readers familiar with Twain's plotting in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn than for those who have perhaps not read Twain since they were children. James reminds me a little of Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad, but I will be surprised if it attains quite the same level of success.