On James by Percival Everett: A slave's retelling of Huckleberry Finn
A swing and a miss, but still worth reading
So Percival Everett’s James (2024) seems to be something of a sensation right now. It is the new BookTube and Goodreads literary darling, and so, given this status, I felt obliged to check it out—especially with its relationship with Twain’s classic.
Whenever I see a book that received so much attention and acclaim as a “work of art,” I cannot help being skeptical. The last time there was such fuss over a novel about slavery, we were all told to read The Underground Railroad (2016) by Colson Whitehead, which was silly, lacked characterization, and relied mostly on trite melodrama and shock value. One of the many shamelessly exploitative bits of Booker-bait out there. Hence, it made it onto NYT’s list of the Top 100 Books of the 21st Century.
I was worried James would be basically the same thing. I’m pleased to say that it isn’t, but nor is it the masterpiece the internet is claiming. It’s just a decent and breezy read.
If you don’t know or haven’t guessed, this is the story of Jim, the slave befriended by Huckleberry Finn in the original. I reread Huck Finn and compared the two books for this review, and it is very clear that not just the characters of that book but its author had a fairly stereotypical and racist view of black people, even if they didn’t endorse slavery. This is not only problematic; it takes away from the character of Jim.
“Jim” is dumb, superstitious, gullible, and driven by simple emotions. “James” is the opposite in every way. Nonetheless, he presents himself as the stereotype that white people need him to be in order that they feel comfortable around him. The work of art James is closest to is actually 12 Years a Slave (2013) by Steve McQueen, a black filmmaker from the UK—the tale of a free and educated man who is abducted and enslaved. Out of everything mentioned thus far, his film is the only true masterpiece. It was based on the famous book by Solomon Northup.
Twain was a white man living at the time he wrote about. Everett is a black man living far removed from that time. Each of them is writing partly what they know, but filling in a lot of blanks. Northup was actually a slave and experienced this first-hand. His account gives us insight we might not have had otherwise. Even so, McQueen is an artist and manages to elevate the material further.
My impression was that James was essentially a watered-down combination of Huck Finn and 12 Years a Slave. It is by far the most overtly political of the bunch and is rather condescending to the reader in how much it spells out. The focus on language was a wise choice, however, and James manages to avoid a lot of the standard fair one might expect of a slavery narrative.
As a character, James is far better fleshed out than Jim, with a lot more depth. The issue is that all of the secondary characters of James, as though it were a trade-off, are far more generic than those of Huck Finn.
Ironically, despite the emphasis on language, there is less of a creative use of it in James as well, as Everett’s prose lacks much of the wit and distinctive voice that saturates Twain’s. This might actually be to its benefit commercially, as it makes it more accessible. Twain’s style is quite polarizing but also very memorable. Despite how dated Huck Finn is in ways, it will probably long outlast James. That’s because in art, what you say does not matter nearly as much as how you say it, and Twain understood this. Otherwise, why tell a story in the first place?
What James is really about is the social need to suppress one’s identity, which is something quite universal and always relevant. It is found in autism, for example, which I have, in which behaviors such as masking (in which your natural traits are covered up to fit in around others) and fawning (which is an excessive impulse to people-please) are so common as to be the default. Funnily enough, the less comfortable an autistic person is around you, the more they will go out of their way to make you comfortable.
Masking and fawning are the very subjects that James is concerned with, above all else, as they apply to slaves and all who were determined to be black in those days (James himself is rather light-skinned and even meets another slave who can pass for white, but volunteers to “remain black” as a rejection of what white people stand for in his experience).
Sadly, it is on this issue that Everett falls on his face, presenting these behaviors as entirely voluntary and performed with full self-awareness. This is categorically NOT how this occurs in reality. These are defense mechanisms developed out of trauma and are exhibited almost without one being able to help it. It is not some strategy that has to be shared among the in-group and passed down through generations; it is simply conditioning and learning to act and talk as others in your position do. McQueen got this right, by the way, so there shouldn’t be an excuse for such a colossal blindspot.
Oh well, I still think it was a net gain in terms of brownie points, so I suppose, in that sense, it was a success. Either way, hopefully, it’s a lesson learned for the next author who decides to tackle this issue.
On that note, welcome to all of the new members. A decent chunk of you signed up because you were recommended by my friend Dr.
, who is one of the most creative and knowledgeable writers on Substack. So, I will try not to embarrass her or anyone else who recommends me (too much).—Dan Lyndon
Thank you so much for the shout out, Dan!! Have you ever read/watched I Claudius? There's a similarity perhaps between what this story does with James and the way that Robert Graves turned a famous historical 'fool' into a clever disabled man who played down to his dangerous family's expectations to avoid being assassinated!