Fiona Stager recommended the novel JAMES (Pan Macmillan 2024) by award-winning author Percival Everett, who has written over 30 books and been a finalist for both the Booker and the Pulitzer. (I recently enjoyed the film American Fiction which was based on his novel Erasure.) I absolutely raced through this book in a day.
James is a retelling (of sorts) of Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, but from the perspective of the slave, Jim (or James). Everett takes the setting, history and environment of Huck Finn and includes him as a character, but the story is narrated by James, a black man enslaved with his wife and daughter on a farm on the banks of the Mississippi River in Missouri in 1861.
When Jim learns he is to be sold and separated from his family, he does the unthinkable – runs away and hides on a nearby island while he tries to hatch a plan of escape. He and Huck are inextricably linked, as Huck has faked his own death to avoid his violent father who has arrived back in town. The book tells the tale of their journey, sometimes together, sometimes apart, by raft and stolen craft and by foot, along the river and hopefully towards freedom in the free states. Murmurings of the Civil War are beginning, although nobody is entirely clear what that might mean. James is desperate to protect his family, and Huck wants to make his mark on the world as a young man attempting to be good, and to do good. Their dangerous, life-changing journey and the challenges they face reveal their true characters and what they are prepared to risk and sacrifice for their families, and for freedom.
This in itself – a retelling of this famous story from the point of view of a black man – would be enough of a compelling narrative. But of course, Everett, in his meta, mindful, curious, lively and thought-provoking way, has created something much greater than a simple reorientation. It would be a spoiler to say too much, but I will say that his use of language, his reflections on power, class, gender, equality, and his nuanced storytelling, enhance this narrative to a point of clear perfection. His playfulness around language is especially brilliant; it reflects and refracts the delineations and blurred edges of how the spoken word is used to determine one’s societal position and reminds us that there is often much more under the surface than outward appearances may suggest.
The book also contains a magnificent twist towards the end which made me stop and reread the page several times to understand its significance. This revelation turns on its head all that has come before and forces the reader to reconsider everything we’ve assumed or understood up until that point.
The novel obviously deals with some weighty issues of slavery, violence, racism and people’s inhumanity to others. But this is tempered by Everett’s wicked, witty, sardonic, clever and sly sense of humour, which offers plenty of light-hearted moments, engaging dialogue and ridiculous/improbable situations that together elevate the book from what could be an entirely sad tale filled with incandescent rage into a story that says something about the indomitability of the human spirit, the joy to be found in small achievements, the loyalty of friendship and the capacity of people to face great challenges and persevere despite adversity.
Tight plotting, smart dialogue, authentic relationships, big themes and quirky characters combine to make this incredible novel a must-read.