James

by Percival Everett

James takes the plot of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and retells everything from Jim’s point of view. In case you haven’t read Huck Finn—Huck runs away from home and encounters an enslaved man he knows well, Jim, who takes care of him as they journey down the Mississippi River. Tellingly, they intend to go north but miss that bend in the river because they lack the navigation skills required and encounter a heavy fog. These are metaphors for the racism that makes it impossible for Huck to truly help Jim escape the bonds of chattel slavery.

The novel is famous for its use of a historically accurate dialect on the part of Jim, including the “n word,” but James, as he prefers to be called among his own race, does something called code-switching. The first thing we learn about him is that he is highly educated. But he uses that (in)famous dialect with White people to portray an ignorant, unintelligent enslaved man. This makes them more comfortable and makes him slightly safer.

One major theme of the novel is the toll it takes on a human being to maintain such intense and constant vigilance. James and his fellow enslaved people cannot relax for a single moment. It’s a powerful statement about what chattel slavery was, but it’s also about what it still means to be Black in America. Everett never takes us out of the story or distracts us with this, but James’s interactions with White people are all too familiar. Anyone might turn on him at any moment, for no reason at all. There’s even a scene involving a White person touching his hair out of fascination with the texture.

I love that this novel follows James during his time away from Huck. The two are forcibly separated a number of times, and it’s fascinating to see what Everett does with these moments in which he can invent a deeper story. There’s an incident involving a short-lived career as a minstrel performer, in which James pretends to be a White man impersonating a Black man. It’s absurd and could be funny, like Shakespeare’s boys who play women who impersonate men. But the terror of possible discovery undermines any humor we might find in the situation.

When he’s among other enslaved characters, they all code-switch. This is especially true among James’s beloved family, a family he is forced to leave behind. Still, he never gives up hope that he will find them again. Hope is what keeps James going.

I almost skipped James because I grew up reading and dissecting Huck Finn with my now-estranged father. I thought it would be too painful. But the glowing reviews kept coming up in emails from bookstores and other places online, so I decided to give it a try. I’m so glad I did. Whether you’re familiar with Huck Finn or not, you will definitely enjoy and learn a lot from James. I have now read two of Percival Everett’s novels, and the man is a genius.