About the Book
LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2024!
Selected as one of the top 12 reads of 2024 by The Times and Sunday Times
'Percival Everett is a giant of American letters, and James is a canon-shatteringly great book' - Hernan Diaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Trust
'Who should read this book? Every single person in the country' - Ann Patchett, bestselling author of Tom Lake
An enthralling and ferociously funny reimagining of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from the perspective of the enslaved Jim. Written by Booker Prize-shortlisted Percival Everett, his novel Erasure is now released as the critically acclaimed and Oscar-winning film American Fiction, and James is set to be the literary event of 2024.
The Mississippi River, 1861. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson's Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town. Thus begins a dangerous and transcendent journey by raft along the Mississippi River, towards the elusive promise of the free states and beyond. As James and Huck begin to navigate the treacherous waters, each bend in the river holds the promise of both salvation and demise.
With rumours of a brewing war, James must face the burden he carries: the family he is desperate to protect and the constant lie he must live. And together, the unlikely pair must face the most dangerous odyssey of them all . . .
From the shadows of Huck Finn's mischievous spirit, Jim emerges to reclaim his voice, defying the conventions that have consigned him to the margins.
About the Author :
Percival Everett is the author of over thirty published works, including Zulus, Erasure, I Am Not Sidney Poitier, Assumption, Percival Everett by Virgil Russell, Telephone, The Trees, Dr. No and James. A Guggenheim Fellow and Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Everett has won the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award, the Academy Award in Literature, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, and the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize for Fiction. In 2022, The Trees was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
Percival Everett lives in Los Angeles, CA, where he is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.
Review :
A captivating response to Mark Twain’s classic that is both a bold exploration of a dark chapter in history and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit
I’m demanding that you read Percival Everett’s novel James, in which Everett takes the camera from Twain’s Huck Finn and hands it to the slave, Jim. Truly extraordinary books are rare, and this is one of them
James is funny and horrifying, brilliant and riveting. In telling the story of Jim instead of Huckleberry Finn, Percival Everett delivers a powerful, necessary corrective to both literature and history. I found myself cheering both the writer and his hero. Who should read this book? Every single person in the country
Pure brilliance. Funny, wise, gracious; this may be Everett's best book yet
Percival Everett is a giant of American letters, and James is a canon-shatteringly great book. Unforgiving and compassionate, beautiful and brutal, a tragedy and a farce, this brilliant novel rewrites literary history to let us hear the voices it has long suppressed
My favourite novel this year was James by Percival Everett. By giving the runaway Jim from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn his own voice (or voices) and his dignity – James, not Jim – he adds a dimension that’s missing from the original, and, I think, improves on it
Scorchingly funny . . . A significant and exhilarating corrective to history, told in the most compelling of voices
Playful and viciously comic . . . James might be the book of the year and ought to have won the Booker Prize
Percival Everett’s magisterial satire James [is] an essential rewrite of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn
James is not just an imaginative retelling of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (which gives voice and agency to the enslaved Jim) but a gripping and propulsive drama that takes readers on a familiar journey while challenging their preconceptions at every twist and turn
One of the novels of the year . . . [It] is both true to the original and turns it entirely on its head. Crackling with insight and wit
You will never think of Mark Twain's seminal 19th-century novel in the same way again, as Everett's version is subversive, clever and exciting, while also being a rollicking good read
James by Percival Everett [is] such a brilliant retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of the enslaved Jim, resisting and rebelling against underestimation and oppression. A wise and profound book – and funny too
James by Percival Everett is more than a retelling of a classic; it is a reclamation, somehow a homage and a rebuke – a retelling that centres a man we only previously accessed through the lens of a child. It is a wry, wise, funny and touching book that I would gift to strangers on the street if I could
Funny, moving, beautifully written, Percival Everett’s retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a brave thing to do – but Everett is a fitting match for Mark Twain
Original, funny, quirky and serious without being solemn
Choosing the best book of the year is usually a test . . . But this year Percival Everett’s James . . . is so dazzling that it deserves wide appreciation and acknowledgement . . . [It] will surely become a classic to be read alongside Twain
Gripping, painful, funny, horrifying . . . a consummate performance to the last
This is the work of an American master at the peak of his powers
Both a page-turner and a profound meditation on the ramifications of slavery and self-hood . . . Luminous
A classic novel overhauled by a modern master
Percival Everett is an essential writer and James may be his greatest novel yet
A sharp novel . . . You may think you know Huck Finn’s story but this version breathes new life into it with unexpected twists and turns making it a must-read
Majestic . . . [James] is Everett’s most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful
American literature’s philosopher king — and its sharpest satirist
[An] ingenious retelling of The Adverntures of Huckleberry Finn . . . Everett has outdone himself
The audacious and prolific Everett dives into the very heart of Twain's epochal odyssey
An absolutely essential read
Clever, soulful, and full of righteous rage . . . James is destined to become a modern classic
To call James a retelling would be an injustice. Everett sends Mark Twain’s classic through the looking glass. What emerges is no longer a children’s book, but a blood-soaked historical novel stripped of all ornament . . . Genius
‘[A] careful and thought-provoking auditing of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . . . broadening our understanding of an endangered classic by bringing out the tragedy behind the comic façade
In a fever dream of a retelling, the new reigning king of satire, Percival Everett, has turned one of America's best loved classics, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, upside down . . . a startling homage and a new classic in its own right
Heir to Mark Twain’s satirical vision, Everett turns a boyhood memoir into a neo-fugitive slave narrative thriller . . . a provocative, enlightening work of literary art
[A] sly response to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . . . James both honors and interrogates Huck Finn, along with the nation that reveres it
Once you’ve picked up Everett’s James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, you’ll know that only Everett could take on the task of allowing Mark Twain’s character Jim to show what was missing from the original story
Audacious. . . Everett [gives] Jim – who, we learn, prefers to be called James – his agency, letting his intelligence and compassion shine through
[Percival Everett is a] prolific genius . . . If anyone is poised to casually write a masterpiece that not only becomes instant canon but also sets a brush fire to the current ones it stands upon, it’s Everett. And that’s exactly what he’s done with James
Everett's latest dazzling novel is a supplement and a rebuke, a corrective and a celebration of Mark Twain's [The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]
[James] abounds in satire and irony . . . Like Kafka, [Percival Everett] is capable at once of being scarily funny and chillingly serious
By recasting Twain’s flawed classic as a portrait of an enslaved man – in all the fullness of his courage, humanity and humour – Everett leaves a meaningful mark on American letters
The wit of the writing and the fascinating examination into the freeing power of language preserves the charm and action-packed adventure of [The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn], while cleverly – and at times harrowingly – deconstructing its flaws
James is a masterful reimagining of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . . . [Percival Everett] has written a classic
James, Percival Everett’s reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, was the pick of the Booker list – a nerveless triumph of tone
Impudent and satirical, Everett demands courageous open-mindedness from his readers
Devastating . . . [James's] fearsome transformation is marked not only in the title, but also in [the novel's] final words
