Booker shortlist book review #1 – “James” by Percival Everett

This is my first read from the Booker shortlist. I chose it for two reasons: firstly, I thoroughly enjoyed Everett’s previous novel The Trees, which was shortlisted for the Booker in 2022 (it did not win; Shehan Karunitilaka’s The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida took the honours that year); secondly, I was invited to ask the author a question on the BBC’s World Book Club radio show a few months ago. I entered into a (very small, but huge to me!) dialogue with the author and came away a bit starstruck! I suspect our brief little conversation was edited out of the final show, I haven’t listened back to it. I also read quite a few pieces about the book and the author since and he is without doubt an impressive and accomplished man. 

James has caught a lot of attention because it tampers with an American icon, Huckleberry Finn. I recall reading the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, first published in 1884, on a road trip around the United States when I was 21. I spent a summer working in New Hampshire and then spent my earnings travelling round for a few weeks. I spent quite a bit of time in the south and the racial divides were still very clear to see in the late 1980s. To my shame, however, I cannot say that I was particularly aware of the racism implicit in the novel (or in its companion volume, which I also read, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Huck’s friend) apart from the widespread use of the n-word, which I think I probably saw simply as the vernacular of the era in which the book was written and therefore somehow being less offensive?

In Twain’s novel, Huck is an innocent, a child who runs away from home and his abusive father, and who meets the runaway slave Jim en route. The two work together, but it is clear that Jim is merely secondary, meant to highlight Huck’s naivety and essential goodness. Twain was a staunch supporter of the movement to abolish slavery but he fails to challenge racial stereotypes and Jim is merely a bit-player with neither agency or intellect. Everett turns that Great American novel on its head (which will no doubt have infuriated some), makes Jim the eponymous central character and rather than call him by the three-word handle bestowed on him by his “owner” gives him back his full and rightful title, James. 

Jim/James, it matters here. The novel begins, somewhat comically, with the children in the community being taught “slave talk”; how to speak in a way that will not threaten their white masters and will therefore help to keep them safe. There is a quiet resistance here. Whilst the slaves are, yes, forced to dumb-down, privately they exercise their right to use the English language to its full extent, and to use their minds. It is almost as if they are in waiting. The theme of words, their power, and the power of speech, prevails throughout the novel.

In the first half of the novel, James spends a lot of time with Huckleberry and the author reprises many of the same scenes as characters as Twain, follows the same picaresque journey, but giving the reader, as it were, the inside track on what is really going on with ‘Jim’ and between him and Huck. Huck remains the innocent, as in Twain’s original, but we also see his internalised racism, his own victimhood, but, ultimately, his confidence in the security bestowed upon him by being white. There are no major consequences for Huck in being a runaway or getting into scrapes. Here though, it is Huck who is the secondary character, the foil to illustrate James’s character. The second half of the novel takes some darker turns and Huck is less prominent. The events in James’s life take on a certain inevitability and whereas white skinned Huck can have adventures largely without consequence, for James there will always be consequences. The author puts very much in James’s shoes and invites us to consider whether any of us would have done anything differently. 

This novel is brilliantly conceived and executed with aplomb. It is better than The Trees, more sophisticated and subtle, and so must be a strong contender for the prize. If it wins it will be richly deserved. 

A must-read.