Percival Everett - James (2024)
"This isn’t the first novel to reimagine Twain’s 1885 masterpiece, but the audacious and prolific
Everett dives into the very heart of Twain’s epochal odyssey, shifting the central viewpoint from that
of the unschooled, often credulous, but basically good-hearted Huck to the more enigmatic and heroic Jim,
the Black slave with whom the boy escapes via raft on the Mississippi River. As in the original, the threat
of Jim’s being sold “down the river” and separated from his wife and daughter compels him to run away while
figuring out what to do next. He's soon joined by Huck, who has faked his own death to get away from an abusive
father, ramping up Jim’s panic. “Huck was supposedly murdered and I’d just run away,” Jim thinks. “Who did I
think they would suspect of the heinous crime?” "
Kirkus Review and
Kobo Books