Percival Everett

I don't remember much about reading Twain's 'Finn' almost twenty years ago. Upon looking up my notes on it, my main takeaway was that "Twain didn't really know what to do with Jim." As soon as I heard the great Percival Everett was going to take on the book from Jim's point-of-view, I knew it would be a winner for him. It automatically went on way too high of a pedestal before it was even released. Upon reading 'James', I'm a bit disappointed. Sure, I have only read a couple Everett's books, but Everett is a genius. This seemed more like a recap of Twain's book with the occasional genius sentence that I expect from Everett sprinkled throughout. I get that Twain's original work is an adventure novel, but I'm not sure why Everett had to lean so heavy in focusing on plot. The entire point is that James is more layered than he is allowed to let the surrounding white folk around him know. And I realize James can not be spouting references to modern day things, but I did expect this narrative to be more layered. Why can't James have an even larger interior wisdom that at least the reader gets to witness, as the way the book is written, James is writing things down, rather than allowing most of the characters around him to see that he is subverting expectations based on race? Then I was sad about some of the choices in the end of the book. Possibly re-reading the source material would have helped me here. I think also, this is Everett's move to a big publisher. Hopefully that means his backlist of 30+ books will be republished and easier to find? I can wish.But also, I hope this isn't less amazingness from Percival Everett that we get, just because he moved to a big publisher. Maybe more plot based books now? It's funny how that might be mirroring one of the purposes of the book 'James' in the first place. But really, I think a reply to Twain's 'Huck' was needed, and I think Everett was one of the rare writers who could do it.… (more)

“Belief has nothing to do with truth.”

This book takes the "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" and turns it upside down and inside out! (I kinda wish I had re-read the original before I read this...) It does sag a little in the middle, but it is well worth the read! Telling the story from Jim's point of view, and the reality of a slave's life at the time is just amazing! The slaves change in diction when white people are around is brilliant! And teaching the children how to speak proper ‘slave’ talk around the whites is even better!

And this is not the Jim you grew up with! This Jim has “…imagined conversations with Voltaire, Rousseau, and Locke about slavery, race and, of all things, albinism.”

And that big twist at the beginning of Part Three! Whooeee!!! And Chapter Seven of Part Three is awesome! It just gets better from there!

“I am a sign. I am your future. I am James.”

“Just James.”… (more)

Here is a reimagining of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and because it's by Percival Everett, you already know it's going to be good. This novel is in the form of a diary kept by James, known as Jim in the originating novel. When James finds out he is to be sold, he runs, unwilling to lose his family. He is soon joined by Huck, who is running away for his own reasons and they set out together to journey down the Mississippi River to where it joins the Ohio, which is where James plans to head north. As they travel, they face many dangers and are often separated, but always the dangers that James faces are magnitudes higher, as is made clear, over and over again.

How strange a world, how strange an existence, that one's equal must argue for one's equality, that one's equal must hold a station that allows airing of that argument, that one cannot make that argument for oneself, that premises of said argument must be vetted by those equals who do not agree.

Everett makes the horrors of slavery clear, but like he did in The Trees, there is also humor. This is, after all, an adventure story, with the episodic structure of that genre. James is well-read, having used Judge Thatcher's library for years and, like the other enslaved people, he uses the dialect expected of him around white people, but among others like him, he is free to speak the way he wants, a secret language switching that Huck occasionally catches him at. His odd friendship with Huck is wonderfully developed. This is the best book I have read so far this year and I will be surprised if anything surpasses it. It's an extraordinary achievement from one of our greatest living writers.… (more)

The trees. The family trees…. The hanging trees…

“News of Junior Milam’s death spread like disease across the county. So did the story of the strange, missing Black corpse.” “Both were badly beaten.” “…the White man’s testicles were severed and clenched in the fist of the Black man.” And then it happened again! With the same exact dead Black corpse holding another murdered man’s testicles in an entirely different location! WTF??? And is it Emmett Till, come back after 60 years to exact his revenge?
“Somebody is killing White people down here, and the same Black man has been found dead at each scene.”

Welcome to Money, Mississippi! “It’s worth a visit!”
Throw in two Black detectives from ‘up north’, the Klan, the Trumpsters, and a ‘witch’ named Mama Z and stir the place up!
And the names of the people in this book?!?! Herberta Hind, Hot Mama Yeller, Triple J, Cad Fondle, Granny C, Red Jetty, Otis Easy, Junior Junior, and Helvetica Quip, to name a few. Oh, and McDonald McDonald. My goodness!

Such a great read! And so well written! Trump’s speech at the end reads like one of his actual speeches! The characters are great and I love the whole premise of what happens in the story! Justice!!! And, honestly, I kinda wish something like this would happen in real life!

“Rise. Rise.”

“You know, a stupid redneck with a gun.
That’s redundant.”

“Death is never a stranger. That’s why we fear it.”

“If you want to know a place, you talk to its history.”

“You can’t unfire a gun.”… (more)