JAMES

We have a tortured past in our country because of the scourge of slavery. Many have described that shameful period of our past through historical texts or fiction, including Harriet Beecher-Stowe, Marilynne Robinson, and Mark Twain - the latter of which wrote both Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. However, none of those books truly captures what slavery felt like to the slave using a first person account. Because of that, I was so thrilled to hear about Percival Everett's recent book, James, a re-telling of Huckleberry Finn told from the perspective of the slave, Jim (i.e., James).

While the story is largely the same as Huckleberry Finn, there are some very important tangents and distinctions. First, we hear James' voice in normal diction, rather than as slave mumbo jumbo. This humanizes James and provides a very stark contrast between his personhood and the inhumanity of the white people he encounters.

I will not spoil the plot, but I cheered and routed for James in a way that I have not for other fictional characters in other books. That is a credit to Everett, who has re-imagined and modernized this character in a way that I think Twain would have been proud of. Check it out for yourself! You, too, will come away changed!