Bookmarks: “James” by Percival Everett
Published March 2024, Doubleday
By Drew Foster
“What’s in a name?” wrote Willy Shakespeare in “Romeo and Juliet.” Or was it Bill Shakespeare? Or William? Juliet was arguing that a name does not define a person. Percival Everett thinks otherwise.
Everett’s newest novel, “James,” is a reimagining of Mark Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” told from the runaway slave’s perspective. In Twain’s novel, this was Jim. In Everett’s, it’s James; he’s his own man.
“James” won this year’s Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in May, along with the Kirkus Prize and National Book Award for Fiction last year. It is a serious work by a serious novelist at the top of his game. “James” simultaneously celebrates “Huckleberry Finn” while turning it on its head. It is funny, brutal, tender, and scathing. Everett builds Jim into the fully formed, multifaceted, leading man James, all while not diminishing or making a prop out of Huck Finn. We get to know both characters in ways we didn’t in Twain’s work.
The novel opens like this: “Those little bastards were hiding out there in the tall grass…. Those white boys, Huck and Tom, watched me. They were always playing some kind of pretending game where I was either a villain or prey, but certainly their toy…. It always pays to give white folks what they want, so I stepped into the yard and called out into the night, “Who dat dere in da dark lak dat?”
Immediately we recognize James’ intellect, code-switching ability, and cognizance of his own station. He’s no fool. He’s savvy. He’s a survivor. He knows how to play a role, and why. James embraces knowledge as power. Early in the novel, he leads an exercise among slave children to effectively employ what James calls the “slave voice.” “Try ‘dat be,’” I said. “That would be the correct incorrect grammar.”
A few lines later: Language is not merely a tool but a means of survival.
Language is also exploratory. A large portion of “James” unfolds as dialogue between Huck and James, much as “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” did. Everett’s dialogue is sharp and revealing, but it can dominate the pages. At times I found myself wanting more description, more scene setting. Nevertheless, the copious dialogue has a purpose – it’s through conversation that James and Huck cement their bond.
The dialogue is nuanced, highlighting Everett as an experienced, masterful storyteller. He knows when to employ silence and pauses. He uses negative space to sharpen a focal point. Everett skillfully leaves things unsaid, allowing the reader to infer meaning and connect dots. He leads the reader to the edge of an understanding or statement.
There’s a part in “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” where Huck grows tired of the arduous trip and considers turning Jim in and ending their journey. Moments later he’s presented with just that opportunity when two men searching for runaway slaves come upon Huck in a canoe and Jim on the raft. They point to a figure hidden under a tarp – Jim – and ask who it is. Huck considers his options, and lies. He says it’s his sick father, who the men suspect has small pox and don’t want to approach.
Everett gives us a similar scene where James hears Huck speaking to two men in search of a runaway slave. I could hear the wheel in Huck’s little head turning. “Seen anybody, boy?” the first man asked again. Huck paused. I listened to this pause.
The pause is all we need. It is a shift. It’s a boy maturing, an attitude evolving. Everett does this at other times with eye contact or a sigh. He packs a thousand pounds of weight into a gesture.
Everett hews closely to Twain’s story for the first half of “James.” The pair camps on Jackson Island, investigates a shipwreck, encounters the Duke and the Dauphin. But eventually they separate and “James” begins to plough new ground.
No matter where he goes James cannot escape the shackles of slavery. His intelligence and awareness do not shield him against his lack of rights. James finds himself in the possession of a blacksmith and then a sawmill owner – two events alluded to by Twain but fully explored by Everett. Eventually, and somewhat comically, James is acquired by the leader of an emancipation-focused minstrel group that performs in blackface. James must also wear blackface, effectively disguising himself as a white man portraying a Black man. Later, James is in the engine room of a steamship manned by a slave who works manically to satisfy a white owner who may or may not actually exist.
Throughout all of it, Everett successfully walks a tightrope spanning observation and excoriation. He balances with humor, insight, and tenderness. James continually works toward reuniting his family and protecting Huck. He’s patient, tenacious, astute, and intellectual. So intellectual, in fact, that John Jeremiah Sullivan in the June edition of Harper’s magazine, calls Everett’s character James “all but unique.” Though Frederick Douglass comes to mind. Sullivan also mentions Toussaint Louverture, born into slavery in Haiti.
Only at the novel’s end does Everett come close to going off the rails. Throughout the book, James acts as the levelheaded voice of reason to Huck’s impulsivity. Yet at the end, James commits violent retribution. It seems over the top. But more poignant than the acts of violence is James’ decision to drop the slave voice and wield his true command of the English language. Despite holding a gun on Judge Thatcher near the novel’s end, what truly frightens the judge is the change in James’ diction. If the novel offers a parting lesson it’s that our minds are the most powerful weapons we possess.
