James - Percival Everett - ★★★

AUTHOR: Percival Everett

GENRE: Historical Fiction, Retelling

PUBLICATION DATE: March 19, 2024

RATING: 3 stars.

In a Nutshell: A historical fiction retelling the story of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn from another character’s point of view. Important to remember that this is satirical in nature, else some of the inclusions will feel farfetched. Other than the exaggerations, it is fairly truthful to history as well as to the historical classic. Dark humour at times; dark emotions more frequent. Triggering for several events related to human enslavement. Works well as a standalone, but you might appreciate it better if you are familiar with Huck’s story. Recommended, but not a must-read.

Plot Preview:

When Jim, an enslaved man, hears that he is to be sold and hence separated from his wife and his daughter, he runs away until he can come up with a plan to save them all. While in hiding, he bumps into young Huckleberry Finn, who has faked his own death to escape from the clutches of his abusive father. The two begin a journey down the Mississippi river, hoping to reach the free states. But if you know the classic, you know that this journey is easier said than done.

The story comes to us in James’ first-person perspective.

‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ was the first ever (abridged) classic my father purchased for me when I was in the fifth grade. (I have no idea why he thought I would like this story at that age!) I completed it only because I completed every book. I remember being utterly bored by it midway, not even understanding some parts of the story. I vaguely remember reading it one more time during the next vacations, then never touched the book again. (Fun fact: I still own that copy in pristine condition. 😅) It’s not like I didn’t like Mark Twain’s books; ‘The Adventures of Tom Sawyer’ was more to my liking. But this one just didn’t click with me.

Given this background, I had absolutely no interest in reading a retelling based on this classic. All the more because I always read/reread the original story before picking up a retelling, and I had no desire to read Huckleberry’s story again. But all the positive reviews for this novel finally made me succumb and try the audio version. It worked decently, but I think my dislike for the original seeped a little into my experience.

I read a summary of the classic before beginning, which turned out to be more than enough as a refresher. If you know Huck’s story, then many events of this novel will be familiar to you but still interesting from the new point of view. If you haven’t read the original, I think you will miss out on the nuances and also won't be able to appreciate the cleverness of this version as a retelling. It is amazing how faithful it stays to the classic while still creating a new story.

James is interesting as the lead character: resourceful and brave while still trying to live under the radar of the white overlords. The secondary characters are also interesting, several of whom are from the classic. Huck Finn doesn’t have that extended a role to play in this version, but most of his scenes work well for the plot. The only significant exception was the forced connection between Jim and Huck; that felt unnecessary.

Using James/Jim as the narrator is a critical change that makes a lot of difference. Many classics gloss over the experiences of enslaved people as they are written mainly by white writers and hence come from the external perspective. The authenticity of voice is always missing. This book makes recompense for that, allowing us to see the same events from the view of an important yet secondary character in the original.

What makes the POV even better is the satirical tone. To be honest, I didn’t initially know that this novel was a satire, so at the start, when I read the scene where James, who has impeccably highbrow vocabulary, was teaching Black children how to deliberately speak a distorted version of the English language to fool the whites, I wondered what the author was trying to do. But viewed through the lens of a satire, the scene makes perfect sense.

Given how many elements of the original are included in this version, it shouldn’t be surprising that it also contains the offensive stuff. Several scenes are disturbing, especially as they are reported first-hand by the character who experiences racist brutality. This gets a bit intense on the head; it is tough to acclimatise to such language and scenes no matter how prepared you are.

The final few chapters went the mixed way for me, feeling more Hollywood-y than classic or realistic. The abrupt cut-off of the last scene didn’t help.

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 7 hrs 49 min, is narrated by Dominic Hoffman. He does a commendable job bringing James to life. As the story is fairly linear, the audio is a good option.

(Editing to Add: I learnt from my GR friend Karen's review that the conversations are written in their dialectical spellings rather than plain English. As such, I need to appreciate the narrator's performance even more. No way would I have been able to read such writing so smoothly!)

Overall, I liked this version better than the original, but only once I learned that it was a satire. The story has a strange mix of reality and compromised reality, which both intrigues and hinders.

While the book works well on its own, I would recommend reading the original (or at least, a detailed summary) so you can appreciate some of the plot inclusions better.

Recommended to historical fiction fans, preferably those who have read ‘The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ Whether you liked it or not is immaterial.