A reimagined version of Huckleberry Finn, but from the perspective of enslaved Jim.

Jim overhears he is about to be sold, so in order to protect himself, he runs away to a nearby island. It is there that Huckleberry finds him. Huckleberry has staged his own death in order to disappear. Hick a young white boy and Jim an adult black male - Jim soon realises that because he is missing and now so is Huckleberry; it is likely he will be the one who is deemed guilty of his murder.
They both go on the run together, with a plan of returning to their hometown with ideals of buying Jim’s wife and daughter Sadie and Lizzie from their hosts, and they can live in a slave-free state.

Going on the run comes with difficulties, Jim a wanted fugitive needs to find a way to get enough money, Huck wants to help his friend do exactly that. However, as no black men can be seen without an owner; Jim is bought and sold through the slave trade. All the while Huck trying to protect Jim, and Jim trying to protect Huck.

I’ve never read a Percival Everett book before, but I bought a copy of The Trees for a relative and they raved about it, so when the chance came up to read this I jumped at it.
Unfortunately i hadn’t read Huckleberry Finn before, so I had to do a quick read before starting this so I had a bit of context.

This story is not my usual go to, but I’m so glad I read it. It’s a provocative, emotive adventure story - which has a poignant message to us all about racism, friendship and simple humanity. A lot of this book saddened me, it’s set in America in the 1800’s when black slavery was rife and the treatment that they endured is incomprehensible. However, this is also a story about an unlikely friendship, unlikely because of a difference in skin colour, a difference in ages; but a friendship is formed on mutual respect, trust, loyalty and overall that it’s the person within that matters.

This brilliantly written story, has taught me so much more than America’s shameful history, even though the story is fiction - within it are truths that are not.

I implore all of you to read this book. It’s a fantastic read, but it’s also so much more than a story. I’m now off to read all Percival Everett’s other books

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC - in return for my honest review

I read Huckleberry Finn years ago and it always stayed in my mind, James is a re telling told by Jim . You don’t need to have read Huckleberry Finn to enjoy this novel , it is a standalone novel. I thought that this was a brilliant wonderful read which I devoured. It is brutal in parts and tough to read in places. It also so witty and tender in places. We go on an adventure with Huck and Jim meeting an array of characters along the way , whilst Jim is trying to find his wife and daughter. The relationship between the two of them is so moving and the innocence of childhood comes through in Huck’s character. The role of a slave is described so well and the brutal treatment is upsetting to read., it made me so angry. This so far is my book of the year . It will stay with me and I highly recommend it .

I went into this thinking it was just going to be a modern retelling. Wrong! Absolutely brilliant, what an amazing character James is, never rooted for someone so much

This incredible, gut-wrenching, beautiful, heartbreaking novel is a twist on the classic children’s tale “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”, as told from the perspective of the enslaved man Jim. Having not read Huck Finn for at least a couple of decades, I wondered whether the gaps in my knowledge would hamper my reading of this version, but this is so, SO much more than a “retelling”.

I don’t feel able to put into words how special this book is, and would just encourage anyone and everyone to read it. The topic is obviously haunting and there are multiple deeply barbaric scenes, but the writing is also exquisite and hopeful and so very relevant. It is most definitely one that will stay with me for a long time.

My thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for the arc to review.

Oh, my poor heart.

I had no idea that I would end up loving these 2 characters so much. Since it's been so long since I read the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, I had to do a quick review before I let myself dive head first into James. And wow, I can't believe how incredible this book is, how perfectly it painted the setting and the characters surrounding Jim and Huck are. I wanted to reach through the pages and dole out hugs and slaps the whole time!!

Thank you so much for the opportunity to read this. Percival Everett is a frickin genius!!

James by Percival Everett is a superb and compelling reimagining of the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of the enslaved Jim. When Jim overhears he is to be sold and separated from his family he decides to take refuge on Jackson Island until he can formulate a plan. The young Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father who has returned to town. So begins the familiar adventure on the Mississippi River, to the Free States and beyond. Whilst in this novel there are the familiar touchstones of the original novel, here we have the captivating narrative of Jim. A compassionate, intelligent, loving, luminous man, Jim is fighting for his own agency and identity within the landscape of slavery and oppression. The writing is beautiful and insightful adding depth and detail to the story whilst also being fast paced and thrilling. It is a shattering, humorous and adventurous work of historical fiction that everyone should read and that I will return to many times in the future. Imaginative and riveting 5 Stars ✨.

This was such an intense, well written perspective of Huckleberry Finn.

I don't like to call these novels reimaginings, the story is just opened up, a continuation, and I'm so glad Everett took a chance on expanding Twain's novel. The tension of the subject is clear to any reader, but Everett doesn't falter on the fine line, they really expand and envelop you into the story. There's humour, humanity, and retribution, and it's one I'm looking forward to placing in everyone's hands.

This book is engaging from the beginning, the story has been built in past times in USA, when slaves were very much second class - it not third class citizens. they had no rights and were badly treated. This story follows the main characters who are trying to move away from their home area. It ends when slavery is about to be abolished - but not yet.
The 2 main characters keep the story alive from beginning to end. An extremely good read.

This is an incredible book. An instant classic, it will be as important as Mark Twain’s original. The writing, the vivid characters, the profound thoughtfulness at its heart, everything about this was jaw-dropping.

This is a ‘re-imagining‘ of Huckleberry Finn, from the POV of the slave, Jim, or James as he calls himself. I re-read HF before this and I think it‘s worth doing so.

The first half of the book faithfully follows the original and is satirically funny. The second half, when HF and Jim become separated in the original book, gives the author a freer rein. As a result the book becomes a lot darker and is where Everett gets his message across about slavery.

My thanks go to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for a review copy of this book in exchange for my honest feedback.

For the list of new releases for 2024, "James" had been at the top from the outset. There was an awful lot riding on this book, and it has exceeding all possible hopes that I had for it.

Percival Everett putting together a retelling of Mark Twain’s 1884 novel “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” is the sort of situation – an occurrence in the literary canon – that leaves you wondering why you hadn’t imagined it happening already. It feels like such a perfect fit for Everett; so natural a path for him to travel down. I don’t feel a synopsis of the tale is needed here, only to say that Percival Everett’s retelling is from the viewpoint of Jim, the slave who partners Huck Finn on most of his adventures and escapades in the original book.

I find there to be a general aversion to retellings within myself, especially those that retell classic stories. Ones untouched for so long and yet still contain so much punch. For several reasons, I find that reading them can grind at gears I didn’t know could be aggravated. Many of the authors of these retellings come into it with the only aim being to modernise, spruce up, and transfer the tales into a current setting and context – a modern redo. It varies with the skill of the writer, but this can very easily lead to some toe-curling narrative structures. The attempt to modernise creates a potential pitfall whereby the author is inadvertently dating their work in the very present tense. Time moves quickly and these authors can’t see the wood for the trees. Give it a few years – hell, even a few weeks – and the times have already moved beyond that new retelling. Huckleberry Finn is a story that hangs it’s hat on everything that was culturally prevalent at the time. Sadly, that prevalence has never disappeared, and sometimes it feels like it has grown. The growth in the original story’s impact, as well as the need for this retelling, creates potential potholes and slippages galore that Percival Everett must navigate.

The perspective of the original book was always from the viewpoint of Huck Finn. For a novel that uses satire as a tool to dismantle and unbalance the attitudes towards slavery at the time, I feel Twain used all the tools at his disposal. Huck Finn can only see the impact of slavery, he can never feel what it does to a person. That difference in seeing and feeling is where the original story misses the mark. Not through any malice or purposeful erasure, but because Mark Twain, and therefore also Huck Finn, cannot truly know how the horrors of the time impacted black and minority folk. They can see it happening, but they do not truly know.

That switch in perspective that Everett employs brings freshness to the book (freshness may not be the right word, as it provides a far darker narrative than the word suggests). It is the unlocking of a voice that was always there. Jim’s voice in the background. He disappears on numerous occasions in the original story. This is obviously going to happen, because we are Huck Finn, and we go where his story takes us. The real story of the book, however, sits only with Jim, and it is truly his story to tell. Following the path that Jim travels along as opposed to Huck, means the satirical edge of the original tale is needed less, and the horrors of the time really come to the fore. Satire can only take you so far. We witness everything first hand in “James”, exactly as it is being felt by Jim. Huck can hide from it. He can turn a cold shoulder and shun the truth of the matter. Here, the protection of ignorance disappears, and we are confronted face-first with the whole evil of it.

Language was an important part of Twain’s book, with the voice given to Jim being so strong and alien to the rest of the cast. Twain explained this away as being accurate for the time, saying something along the lines of him having committed it to the page only after researching the best direction to take. Perhaps this was true, but it’s clear to see that equipping Jim with that use of language was just Twain succumbing to stereotypes of the time. Everett switches this completely, showing the powers in language and how the use of it could be manipulated to both protect and control. This power is obviously portrayed in the slave owners and their outwardly aggressive implementation of it. But it also belongs to the slaves themselves. It is a quiet, unspoken power. The silence and the things that are left unsaid – that is where Percival Everett excels above anyone else.

Twain’s original tale came at a time when we may not have expected it to. The release of this book, however, comes later than most of us could’ve wished. Thankfully, it was always in perfect hands and the execution can only be admired. Jim’s voice has been needed since forever ago. I’m just pleased that he can’t be silenced anymore.

An enthralling journey awaits within the pages of this captivating fiction novel. With its intriguing plot and well-developed characters, readers will find themselves effortlessly drawn into a world brimming with mystery and suspense. The author’s prose is both eloquent and evocative, painting vivid scenes that linger in the mind long after the book is closed. A truly engrossing read that will leave readers pondering its intricacies and yearning for more. A must-read for fans of thought-provoking fiction.

An absolutely incredible, funny, powerful re-telling of Huckleberry Finn. Everett continues to be at his best! I absolutely devoured this.

This book was billed as a re-telling of Mark Twain's story 'Huckleberry Finn' as seen from the perspective of Jim, the slave. However, it is much more than that. The key facts in Huck Finn are all there (with maybe the exception of Tom Sawyer travelling with them) but the story is given much more flesh from Jim's perspective.

From the start the whole tone of the book is different - Jim is portrayed as a real man, with hopes and dreams, not just someone's chattel to be dealt with however they wished. The idea that the slaves actually spoke perfect American-English and only used slave talk around their masters is fascinating. Many prejudices and preconceptions are dealt with in the book as this shameful era in man's history unfolds.

James does run with Finn, and seeks his freedom and that of his wife and child. By the end of the book you are rooting for James to find his freedom during a time of war, although the nation will take a lot longer than his lifetime to rid itself of its prejudices concerning black people.

I thought it a really good book, it tells a strong story but also makes the reader think and question. The retelling of a classic could have gone very wrong, but this succeeds as it tells its own story, quite different from the original but hanging on the same frame. Perhaps this is the story Samuel Clemens really wanted to write but the mores of his time would not have accepted. By the end my heart was breaking.

Thank you to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan for allowing me access to the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

#Netgalley #Gifted

I read The Trees by the same author as James last year and I’m still struggling to comprehensively review it; I loved it so much I don’t want to mess it up (hello, imposter syndrome) so it was with great enthusiasm that I approached this new book, and Everett’s 24th novel. It thankfully lived up to all expectations.

This is a masterful retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but told from the enslaved Jim’s perspective. What are boyish escapades for Huck are quite literally a matter of life or death for James; the two end up on the run together with the constant fear of capture and lynching at the forefront of Jim’s thoughts. Huck however is settling into his white saviour role with the lack of understanding only a privileged white child can have.

As I expected from Everett, this is just such a cleverly written book; it takes everything you might know about enslaved people, or about the original book, and completely turns it on its head, and it offers you a new way of viewing what many would have described as an American classic.
I haven’t read Huckleberry Finn but went into this book knowing the gist of the original story. I do wonder though if a recent read of Huck would have added much to my experience of James.

There is definitely an element of the fantastical to parts of the book; alternative historical goings-on that could probably never have happened, but add a speculative-fiction feel to what you’re reading. I felt the same when I read The Trees; like the author is serving his own historical justice and righting wrongs as he goes.

This is a dark book. At times, there’s humour in there but be prepared for a lot of unavoidable violence, given the era it’s set in. 100% recommend this book, but proceed with caution.

I truly feel Percival Everett is a genius. I just need to work my way through his back catalogue now!

With many thanks to @netgalley and @panmacmillan for my advanced copy. As always all opinions are my own. James is available to buy on the 11th of April.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an advance copy of this book with no obligation to review.

I enjoyed this book, a new take on Huckleberry Finn. The storyline is similar to the Mark Twain book although there is a twist I am not too sure about and the ending is different but of course the main difference is that Jim is portrayed in a more realistic way. It is intriguing to think that enslaved people were, at least in part, living up to the expectations of their "massas" and not revealing their real selves. I wonder if this was true although I imagine that the enslaved would be too tired and ground down by the appalling reality of their captivity to have the energy to be so self aware.

As I say, it is an interesting idea but I am wary that this difference between the way the captive behaves among his captors and the way he behaves away from them, might have the effect of watering down and rose tinting the dreadful abuses the captives suffered. It is trye to an extent that a person can be captive in body but free in their mind but that does not make up for the captivity.
There is no denying that the book is a page turner, has vivid events and characters and some wry observations about "white folks" and how to deal with them.

It always worries me though that if, in the name of diversity, for example, we change historical fact, we silence the voices of the oppressed and minimise their struggles.

रस निष्पत्ति - रौद्र 😡, करुण😭 (in readers)
भाव निर्मिति - शोक😪, वीर 💪( in characters)

Even today the maid of my house finds it appropriate to sit down on floor to have her cup of Tea. Everytime I tell her to sit on chair, she argues.This shows how deeply the sense of slavery, servitude is imbibed in our society, that even if given an opportunity to be equal, they prefer to deny it

I wonder what if I visit her house. It would only be appropriate to sit on floor with my cup. I fail to understand that how a person who cleans our mess deserves any less respect

Also makes me ponder was Mark Twain really paying an ode to those societal norms when he wrote Huckleberry Finns. Was it really his "Researched Project" or brutal narrative stated in most apathetic, insensitive way

Everett's James, much like its original, Huckleberry Finns, works around the story of enslaved Jim running off to Jackson Island, after overhearing that he is about to be sold. Separated from his wife and daughter he decides to hide till he can find a way out. On another hand, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his abusive father. Here begins their journey by raft across the Mississippi River & also the journey of their friendship

As much as Everett draws inspiration from the original, the strength of his work lies in marking & replacing minute things and thus making this work very much his own. From replacing all N- words with Warrior, he creates a real hero for you. One who fights, releases slaves & fights demons inside & outside. From someone who is scared to make his kids speak their native language he becomes one who is a boisterous fighter & renames himself James

When I had read Percival Everett's The Trees, the humorous anger didn't work well for me whereas James with its sensitive approach & a balance of humor embraces you

I am not a big fan of retellings but this one makes you crave for more

Thank you so much @netgalley@panmacmillan @mantlepressbooks for advance review copy

Read it coz this one is out tomorrow, a fantastic retelling which has all the making of an Original Classic

James was a bit of a slow burner for me, but after the first 15/25%, the story picked up and I was completely gripped. It was a hard read in places, but gripping all the same. This is my second Percival Everett novel and it won't be my last. 4 stars

I read books pertaining to slavery with trepidation, but knowing Percival Everett's work I thought that this would be worth reading.
This is much better than Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn.
The storyline is not very pleasant, because it is a re-imagining of Mark Twain's novel.
The story is however very cleverly woven into the Twain storyline, with as much humour as can be found with such a serious underlying topic.
We often forget what a horrendous time some of our fellow human beings were having such a short time ago. Books like this are essential to remind the reader of such events.
Schools should read Twain's and Everett's novels in tandem and then discuss the probable reality of the events described with reference to real events.
My thanks to the author for bringing these important lessons to our attention once again, and for a marvellous read.
Everyone should read this book. It is excellent.
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This work caught my attention because it is described as a reinterpretation of my favourite childhood read, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". "James" retells the classic from a fresh, new perspective, told through the eyes of the slave Jim, who prefers to be called James. Although he is initially portrayed as an ignorant slave, he is in fact quite the opposite: intelligent, literate and remarkably empathetic towards his fellow slaves.
I was particularly struck by the change of register in the way black slaves express themselves depending on whether they are in front of their white owners or each other. However, I must admit that it was challenging for me, given that my mother language is Spanish, while the "Pidgin-English" used by the slaves implies an additional difficulty.
Throughout the novel, an initial fidelity to the original plot is maintained, but towards the middle, Everett begins to take the story down unexpected paths, making it clear that this is not so much Huck's story as Jim's. We are immersed in the world of the slaves, and the story of Jim, in his inner world, gaining a vivid perspective on what it means to be a slave. The narrative oscillates between moments of humour and moments of heartbreaking harshness.
Ultimately, this novel addresses issues of racism and inequality, exploring prejudice and the quest for liberation. It also raises questions about black identity, which must be disguised, and about language as a survival tool that reinforces white supremacy.
Many thanks to NetGalley and Pan Macmillan Publishers for providing me with a digital copy for review.

Esta obra llamó mi atención debido a que se la describe como una reinterpretación de mi lectura favorita de la infancia, “Las aventuras de Huckleberry Finn”. "James" narra el clásico desde una perspectiva fresca y novedosa, contada desde la óptica del esclavo Jim, quien prefiere ser llamado James. Aunque inicialmente se le presenta como un esclavo ignorante, en realidad es todo lo contrario: inteligente, alfabetizado y notablemente empático hacia sus compañeros.
Me ha impactado especialmente el cambio de registro en la forma en que los esclavos negros se expresan dependiendo de si están frente a sus amos blancos o entre sí. Sin embargo, debo admitir que resultó desafiante para mí, dado que mi lengua materna es el español, mientras que el “Pidgin-English” utilizado por los esclavos implica una dificultad adicional.
A lo largo de la novela, se mantiene una fidelidad inicial a la trama original, pero hacia la mitad, Everett comienza a llevar la historia por caminos inesperados, dejando en claro que no se trata tanto de la historia de Huck como de la de Jim. Nos sumergimos en el mundo interior de Jim, obteniendo una perspectiva vívida de lo que significa ser esclavo. La narrativa oscila entre momentos de humor y otros de una dureza desgarradora.
En fin, esta novela aborda temas de racismo y desigualdad, explorando los prejuicios y la búsqueda de liberación. También plantea cuestiones sobre la identidad negra, la cual debe ser disimulada, y sobre el lenguaje como una herramienta de supervivencia que refuerza la supremacía de los blancos.
Muchas gracias a NetGalley y a la editorial Pan Macmillan por facilitarme una copia digital para su revisión.