Book Club: Let’s Talk About ‘James,’ by Percival Everett

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The broad outlines of Percival Everett’s new novel, “James,” will be immediately familiar to anyone with even a basic knowledge of American literature: A boy named Huckleberry Finn and an enslaved man named Jim are fleeing down the Mississippi River together, each in search of his own kind of freedom.

But where Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” treated Jim as a secondary character, a figure of pity and a target of fun, Everett’s novel makes him the star of the show: a dignified, complicated, fully formed man capable of love and wit and rage in equal measure.

In this week’s episode, the Book Review’s MJ Franklin discusses the book with his colleagues Joumana Khatib and Gregory Cowles. Caution: Spoilers abound.

They also discuss comments and questions that readers submitted. If you’ve read “James” and want to join the conversation, we’d love to hear your reactions in the comments. We’ll get you started:

MJ Franklin: “Everett’s version of ‘Huck Finn’ veers into different territory pretty immediately. From the first page, you learn that there is more to James than meets the eye.” …

Joumana Khatib: “This book is certainly subversive. I have no problem considering it an act of subversion. In fact, one of the major themes in this book is just how dangerous and risky language is, and claiming it for yourself, wielding it for yourself.” …

Gregory Cowles: “One thing that happens throughout this book, James, as a runaway slave, is always kind of trying to suss out when he encounters a white person, Is he a safe white person? And really there are no safe white people in this book. … ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ is maybe the original avatar of the white savior narrative. Who is Huck except the white savior for Jim? And ‘James,’ by Percival Everett, is a book that refuses the white savior narrative.”

We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to [email protected].