PERCIVAL EVERETT’S NOVEL James is something of a spiritual successor and corrective companion to Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. When I learned that Everett, who is a fan of Twain’s work, was writing a novel from the perspective of Twain’s character, “N----- Jim,” I knew it’d be a must-read (note: Twain and Everett print the censored word in full). But I decided to read Adventures of Huckleberry Finn first, and while not necessary before reading James, I’m glad I did.
Everett’s novel is set during the time leading up to the Civil War. When James discovers that he’ll be sold and separated from his wife and daughter, he runs away; he eventually runs into Huckleberry Finn, who has faked his own death to escape his abusive father. James and Huck form an alliance and begin making their way down the Mississippi River. This is a perilous journey, both because of the precarity of the river and because of the thing that continues to haunt the United States: race. James is a slave, and so he is raced as Black; Huck, a pubescent prankster, is free and so he is raced as white. But these designations ultimately obscure the human connection between the two characters and their respective groups.
The relationship between James and Huck, first explored by Twain in 1885, is what many point to as the birth of American literature. In 2024, Everett succeeds in exploring the relationship in a wholly original way that is sure to resonate with the fears, anxieties, and hopes of modern readers, especially Americans. And he accomplishes this by making a simple but profound decision: Everett allows “N----- Jim” to assume his rightful name, James, and narrate his own story.
In the act of telling his own story, James begins to make meaning of his life. After obtaining paper and ink, James begins to write to himself and, in a way, to the reader. “But my interest is in how these marks that I am scratching on this page can mean anything at all,” he writes. “If they can have meaning, then I can have meaning.” Later, when another slave named Easter discovers that James can both read and write, Easter gives him a charge: “Then you had best write.”
“I will,” James replies.
By writing about his life, reflecting on his relationship to Huck and his relationship with the nation that has enslaved him, James becomes more confident in who he is as a person and more convinced that he has a responsibility to liberate himself and others.
What ultimately pushes him to act on that belief is becoming familiar with an emotion he had long suppressed: anger. James’ full embrace of the mad he feels will push many readers to consider whether the scourge of slavery justified violent resistance. I felt a catharsis reading the revenge sequences. But meditating on that feeling, I wondered about my own anger and what it might mean that 159 years after the end of slavery, James’ anger still strikes a low, resonant chord.
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