JAMES

Now released in paperback, ‘James’ by Percival Everett and shortlisted for the Booker 2024 is a re-interpretation of one of America’s most acclaimed novels of the 19th century, ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ written in 1884. With his dark humour and imaginative storytelling, Everett bravely re-imagines this iconic novel. Although it is not essential to have read Twain’s original classic, book clubbers would find it more enriching and entertaining to provide a backdrop to ‘James’.

In Everett’s novel, Jim takes centre stage with a voice who we now know as James. The novel is set in 1861 Missouri, as civil war is brewing and Jim discovers he is about to be re-sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter. Jim decides to run away to a nearby island, Jackson Island to make a plan. Meanwhile Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father. Together they journey across the American south, rafting up the vast Mississippi river towards freer States and beyond. Jim needs Huck as he cannot be seen as a runaway slave. Huck needs Jim to help him survive his ‘adventure’. By putting the focus on Jim, Everett allows him to tell his own story factually and without sympathy.

The writing is fast paced as this contrary pair stumble from one misfortune to the next, whether being faced with a group of vagrant scammers, or nearly being caught up in the wheels of a river cruiser on the Mississippi. Everett’s trademark of black humour is also in abundance, none more so than when Jim worries that he is going to be revealed as a black man whilst disguised as a black man in a singing troupe. There is a tendency to wonder how it is possible that Huck and Jim fortuitously keep finding each other after every separation, but maybe this is symbolic of a slave like Jim knowing he could never really escape his white master wherever he hides. The South being on the cusp of civil war reminds Jim that slavery is not the only type of oppression.

As we discover, Jim can read, write and speak like any white man but keeps this under raps to protect himself. Everett cleverly belittles the white supremacy for not spotting that Jim is in fact smarter and often more capable than the white counterparts he meets along the way. Jim’s secret weapon, is that he always carries a pencil and paper. We know education opens the doors for those without, and Jim discussing the ethics of slavery with his favourite philosophers reminds us this will be his secret weapon towards freedom.

This is a thought provoking, funny, poignant and page turning companion to the original story which is guaranteed to ignite a stimulating and interesting book club