Huck Finn Revisited: Review of ‘James,’ the New Novel by Percival Everett

Percival Everett has been writing fiction for over three decades, but his moment has finally arrived. Last year his 2001 novel Erasure was adapted for the film American Fiction, which was nominated for several Academy Awards and won the prize for Best Adapted Screenplay. In March he was the subject of a New Yorker profile by Maya Binyam. Its occasion was the publication of his new novel James, sure to be a candidate for various awards and prizes before the year is out.

James is based on an ingenious premise: It retells the story of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the black slave Jim. Readers anticipating a takedown of Mark Twain will be either frustrated or relieved, depending on their hopes. Everett, who in the book’s acknowledgments offers “a nod” to Twain’s “humor and humanity,” does not supply a predictable, politically correct attack on the canon. To the contrary, he adopts and extends the criticism of racism present in Twain’s novel. In his portrayal, for example, young Huck is at least as troubled by Jim’s plight and the injustice of slavery as in Twain’s original. Huck remains a character with whom we are permitted, even invited, to sympathize.

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About the Author

Peter C. Meilaender

Peter C. Meilaender is a professor of political science and the dean of Religion, Humanities, and Global Studies at Houghton University.

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Percival Everett has been writing fiction for over three decades, but his moment has finally arrived. Last year his 2001 novel Erasure was adapted for the film American Fiction, which was nominated for several Academy Awards and won the prize for Best Adapted Screenplay. In March he was the subject of a New Yorker profile by Maya Binyam. Its occasion was the publication of his new novel James, sure to be a candidate for various awards and prizes before the year is out.

James is based on an ingenious premise: It retells the story of Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the black slave Jim. Readers anticipating a takedown of Mark Twain will be either frustrated or relieved, depending on their hopes. Everett, who in the book’s acknowledgments offers “a nod” to Twain’s “humor and humanity,” does not supply a predictable, politically correct attack on the canon. To the contrary, he adopts and extends the criticism of racism present in Twain’s novel. In his portrayal, for example, young Huck is at least as troubled by Jim’s plight and the injustice of slavery as in Twain’s original. Huck remains a character with whom we are permitted, even invited, to sympathize.