James - Percival Everett
First published by Doubleday/Penguin Random House: New York, 2024.
Last year this book was all the rage; a retelling of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but told from the perspective of the runaway slave known as N-Word Jim, it was shortlisted for the Booker Prize and won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. And... that's all you need to know about the difference between those two awards! James is a well-told, interesting, thought-provoking read, with quite 'angry' undertones, but not generally crossing the line into sordid or unpleasant. If it had, maybe it would have won the Booker Prize as well.
Maybe a little harsh, considering that this year I have also read The Remains of the Day, which is one of my favourite Booker Prize-winning novels. But, having now read five Pulitzer Prize winners and only having given up on one of those so far (The Grapes of Wrath), the percentage of "readable and interesting" versus "turns my stomach" is far higher in this latter category.
To the story itself....!
As already mentioned, James is a retelling of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of 'Jim'. With the main characters and overall plot already set in stone, then, it might seem hard for James to say anything new. Author Percival Everett manages to do this, however, by making Jim far more educated and thoughtful than his Mark Twain counterpart. In James, slaves talk in the stereotypical slave Patois only when white people are nearby; when alone, they show themselves to be much more eloquent and educated. This is so that they can be seen as less threatening by their white masters, and hopefully live lives that are easier. James is well-read, and - where his Twain counterpart had books for no reason - Everett's James is reading them and going into ethical debates with the authors, such as Voltaire and John Locke, in dreams or hallucinations.
James is also increasingly angry at the treatment of blacks by whites, as he witnesses the horrendous treatment of his fellow slaves for minor infractions - things that happen in the episodes where he is separated from Huckleberry in the original book. Thinking about it, the reader is aware that certain characters will not have happy endings, because that would involve Huckleberry learning of their existence... this does not subtract from the emotion when those characters meet their ends.
There are a few twists that add to the plot of James and that take the book in a slightly different direction to the original, but these are told well, and with enough foreshadowing that they fit well into the world that Everett has created.
My only struggle with James was with the ending. I don't want to spoil anything, but the anger that has been bubbling up within James at the systematic mistreatment he and those around him has received does eventually get an outlet, and one particular part of that outlet is one that, although I can understand someone getting to that point, does leave me troubled.
James, the character, is also very cynical and dismissive about the idea of God. Once again, this fits the character that Everett has created, but makes me sad. James cannot reconcile the idea of a good and loving God with the actions of the white people he meets, and instead argues that the idea of God is just another way for whites to control blacks. This feels a very modern take, and perhaps slightly anachronistic considering how many African Americans still hold strongly to their Christian faith despite being introduced to it during slavery. However, it does fit this particular story, it does make sense that some slaves at least might have felt this way, and it doesn't detract from the power of what is a very well-written and challenging book.
Well worth a read.
Completed 23 October 2026.
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