Writer Percival Everett is prolific, and I’m late to the party on that one. I became aware of him last year when his novel Erasure was adapted into the fantastic film American Fiction, starring Jeffrey Wright. People have been buzzing all year about his latest, James, which we can only hope will also get the film treatment. But in the meantime, the original piece of art with pages deserves our attention. Everett has been shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, has won many other awards, and teaches at the University of Southern California. It’s definitely his time, and then some. The good news about being late to a great author’s party is that I can now go back and enjoy his canon.
James is a reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through the narrative eyes of the enslaved Jim, who needs to flee when he finds out Miss Watson (counseled by Judge Thrasher) plans to have him sold to a slave owner in New Orleans. His goal is to get to a free state and then send for his wife Sadie and daughter Lizzie. Of course, plucky Huck is added to the mix, and the “adventure” along the Mississippi begins. The book does not sugarcoat the power of this river and the people who encounter it. Having read Huckleberry Finn so long ago, I don’t remember if that’s the case with that narrative. Either way, Everett tells it like it was in the moments just prior to the Civil War, starting in Hannibal, Missouri.
Jim and Huck face many setbacks along the way, and the reader admires their tenacity. As in the original novel, Huck’s Pap is abusive and fakes his own death to escape that life. Though it takes Huck a long time to see the parallels between Jim’s life and his, he does show some growth in that arena. The novel strongly communicates that Huck is very conflicted about wanting to treat Jim as an equal and a friend, and he wavers sometimes, but never betrays. The two are separated and Jim has to endure many “forced” adventures, such as being sold to an entertainer who has lost the tenor in the minstrel group he’s founded. Jim plays along as he must (he has singing talent) but the humiliation and irony of having to apply blackface to appear to be a white man in blackface is not lost on him.
The novel contains many nods to and observations of white behavior, such as when Sadie, Jim, and Lizzie taste Miss Watson’s cornbread. Miss Watson asked for the recipe, which was Sadie’s mother’s, but of course Miss Watson felt the need to “tweak” it and send some home with Jim. The results were not good, and regarding the towel she sent Jim with, Sadie made sure to say that she’d return it tomorrow because “white folks always remember things like that. I swear, I believe they set aside time every day to count towels and spoons and cups and such.”
There’s a lot of growth and earned trust along the journey of Jim and Huck’s relationship (mostly because Huck is still a child), along with the dichotomy of white and Black existences. For example, a scene early on depicts Huck messing with Jim in “playful” ways:
Huck started laughing. He pointed at me and laughed harder.
“You mean you was pulling my leg?” I said. He was enjoying himself and that was all right with me. It always made life easier when white folks could laugh at a poor slave now and again.
“I had you goin,” Huck said.
“Yeah, it be funny, Huck, sho nuff funny.” I pushed out my lower lip a bit, an expression I displayed only for white people.
“I didn’t mean to hurt you none.”
It could have been my turn to experience a bit of guilt, having toyed with the boy’s feelings, and he being too young to actually understand the problem with his behavior, but I chose not to. When you are a slave, you claim choice where you can.
The novel also does not shy away from how enslaved women were treated, and the brutality of their existence and the weight on their shoulders is depicted realistically. Survivors of sexual assault may want to consider that when reading this book. On the other hand, reading about and building empathy and understanding for the legacy of violence is a small price to pay considering what actual enslaved people endured. And Jim (though the novel’s title gives him the more formal name, his character is still Jim throughout) certainly faces violence personally and is adjacent to it. But ultimately, this is a story about freedom, friendship, family, and strength. In interviews about the book, Everett said, “I hope that no one thinks that my novel is about slavery. There’s a difference between writing a story about people who happen to be slaves and writing a story about slavery.” There is certainly humor in the novel, and it shines through.
There is a fascinating narrative twist that I’m not going to give away here–it is for every reader to discover on their own, and it causes the reader to stop and open their eyes wide. The book contains the spirit of Mark Twain’s novel, but it ends there: James flips the narrative to Jim’s voice and the reader is treated to insights that ring true today. There is quite a bit of time when Huck is not present, so Jim is left to narrate without that burden. The “reimagining” of books seems to be a trend, and Demon Copperhead did it last year to much success. I, for one, am here for the gift of looking at old classics through new eyes.
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