James (2024)
Why this one?
Having discovered Percival Everett, like a fair few readers I’d imagine, via his recent Booker shortlisting for The Trees, I’ve been keen to read as much as possible by him. As yet, I’ve not got that far, but couldn’t resist the opportunity to check out his upcoming release, which has been attracting considerable interest as a retelling of the both beloved and controversial Huckleberry Finn.
Everett (1956- ; active 1983- ) was born in Fort Gordon, Georgia, US. He studied at Brown university, where he wrote his first novel Suder (1983). Since then he’s published relatively prolifically in the US, though many of his books were, at least until recently, more difficult to get hold of in the UK.
Some of his better known novels deal satirically with racism and issues facing Black people in the US and in general, including Erasure (2001), which was the basis for the Oscar-nominated 2023 movie American Fiction, and I Am Not Sidney Poitier (2009). He has won numerous prizes over the years, and was shortlisted for the Pulitzer for 2020’s Telephone. The Trees (2022) was his first Booker nomination. He lives in LA and is a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.
This was an ARC from Pan Macmillan via Netgalley.
Thoughts, etc.
James is, in its simplest sense, a retelling of Mark Twain's classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, from the perspective of the slave Jim. The original is loved and criticised (particularly around its complex handling of race relations) in equal parts, and Everett engages with it with a similar mix of obvious love for the source material and a clear sense of purpose in its interrogation of some of its more problematic aspects.
It begins by following the story relatively closely, so we get Huck and Jim/James uniting on their escape along the Mississippi, the former escaping the wrath of his abusive 'Pap' and the latter the overheard threat of being sold (and thus separated permanently from his wife and daughter). The early 'adventures' (as characterized by Huck in the original; here they take on a more fearful nature as we understand that from Jim's perspective every move carries with it life-threatening peril based on his status as an escaped slave) are present and correct, right up to the encounter with the con men known as the King and the Duke. From here, and the first major separation between the two protagonists, things begin to deviate from the original in ways that it would be far too spoilerish to discuss in detail here.
The usual question with adaptations of this nature is whether or not a detailed understanding of the source is necessary to appreciate the new work. I usually have a fairly clear view on this: the new work either lives as a standalone or it's not worth bothering with. And this one certainly meets that criteria. Even with no knowledge of Huck Finn you will get a gripping thriller, suffused with threat and tension; an obvious critique of racism in the US - both in the era of slavery and in the obvious parallels with what still happens to this day; and bucketloads of Everett's trademark super-dark humour. So that's a tick. But is this case it's probably also true that at least a basic understanding of the original, both its content and its subsequent role in US cultural history, adds a significant amount. That's because, I think, this is neither a straightforward reverent retelling (a la Demon Copperhead) nor an outright satirical inversion of / attack on the original. It's more complex than that, in that all of the above works because of Everett's obvious respect for the original, but that extra layer of the retelling from Jim/James' perspective has a more interesting dialogue with the original, playing with its themes and subsequent interpretations in a variety of ways that add massively to the reading experience.
Probably the most commented on, and most consistently entertaining and incisive aspect of James is Everett's conceit that the language spoken by the slaves in the original is purely performance for their white 'massas' - a deliberate dumbing down / playing to expectations that allows their owners and other white folks to maintain their illusion of superiority and elevated (more 'human' in their eyes) status, while at the same time swerving potential conflict from appearing too much like them, ie an intellectual threat (or perhaps worse, an equal!) This is a simple idea, but brilliantly sustained and explored throughout the book, with the idea of race as performance reaching a dizzyingly brilliant peak as James joins a band of travelling minstrels. Again, I won't give too much away about that section but it's typical Everett brilliance. Anyone who has read any other of his work - especially, of course, Erasure - will know that this concept of race as performance is of significant and enduring interest to him as an author. Cross-referencing his present-day set works reinforces the sense that none of what's described in James is unique to the pre-Abolition era.
The novel, even in its darkest moments, draws on aspects of the original's sense of adventure (even if, as mentioned, it's a heavily subversive take on this genre) and it even carries us along (via some very grim pathways) to a sense that James is allowed a kind of redemptive justice by its denouement. But ultimately the clues dropped throughout the novel to the slaves' parallels with treatment of Black people in the modern world (from microaggressions through to outright brutal violence) point only in one direction: any 'victory' or 'revenge' achieved by James in this book is nothing more than a temporary fantasy. The suffering and maltreatment will endure. James in the novel is a writer as well as a reader, carrying with him a (fateful) pencil and stolen notebook throughout, and we get a sense that as the novel deviates further from the source material we are increasingly reading James' own fantasy, writing his own idealised destiny even if he knows he can never truly live it.
Score
9.5
This is another brilliant book from a writer who seems to finally be coming to justified wider global attention. I'm sad it's taken me this long to get to his work but equally very grateful to the Booker for having introduced me to him. I'll be very surprised if this one doesn't receive similar, if not even greater, accolades in 2024.
Next up
I’m currently reading Benjamin Myers’ 2023 Goldsmiths winner Cuddy, so probably that.
