James

This is a story of an enslaved and educated black man. He was a runaway accused of kidnapping and murder. This story is about looking at the world through the eyes and feelings of this man as he escapes then returns for his family.

James has been on the best sellers list for ages. It deserves its wide interest by many people. It starts out as a rewrite of "Huckleberry Finn" from the slave's perspective but soon turns into his own story. It's an excellent book about that time period and the attitudes of the people. However, it never preaches or beats the reader over the head. It's an adventure and friendship story with unexpected events and twists. It's well imagined and written. I can't imagine any reader not fascinated by every page right up to the end.

This book retelling the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was simply brilliant. A must read for all U.S. Citizens. Personally, I forced myself to read Mark Twain’s book before jumping into James because I either skipped it or got by with cliff notes when I was in school. Ultimately, I liked both books but JAMES is my absolute favorite read and listen of ALL time. READ IT, LISTEN TO IT, or do what I often do - DO BOTH.

This was one of the most exciting and real books I have read in a long time (and I am a voracious reader!). I could not put this book down and finished it in one day! Would not talk to anyone or listen to or look at anything else! Beautifully written and some additional insights into what life was like to be a slave on the run...or to be a slave too afraid to run. If you like heart thumping, intelligent, wonderfully written books...this one is a must!

This book is worthy of all the praise that has been heaped on it. It is also very readable. Indeed, I had trouble putting it down. ItIt provides an excellent insight into slavery and what it was like being a slave and does by having the reader look at life in pre-civil war Missouri and Illinois from the perspective of a slave. The slave’s helplessness in the face of a system designed to crush and control him in every way, points out the horror of authoritarianism when carried out in the extreme.If I have any criticism of the book it is only that the switch from one aspect of the story to the next sometimes take place at breakneck speed. If possible, some of the chapters should have been longer.AIS

A great book, it keeps you on your toes, hoping for the hero to escape this inhumane system.It shrinks time - slavery was still going on when steam engine powered paddle wheelers were cruising the Mississippi. It brings an unexpected explanation of James and Huckleberry's relationship. Well done!

This is a brilliant book lauded and awarded many impressive literary awards. It's an incredible tale built around "Tom Sawyer" but featuring James and Huck. It's a thrilling ride through many lurking dangers in the slaver South. No wonder it has won so many awards. Percival Everett's writing is just incredible. Read it!

Couldn’t put it down. Similar to the almost righteous indignation I felt when I heard Kingsolver was reimagining Dickens in Appalachia with Demon Copperhead, I picked up James wondering about the audacity of an author in this day and age who’d dare to do something similar with Twain. I was more than pleasantly surprised by Kingsolver and Everett as well. Both were phenomenal reads and I’m sure I will come back to this one as often as I have that one. Beautifully written.

This imaginative tale is a page turner. Uniquely designed to draw the reader into the story by using characters from the well known Tom Sawyer story. Jim’s backstory from the slave community and his survival through adversity has the reader routing for him. Huck and Jim’s escapes on the big Mississippi are great adventures topping out with the burning of the Riverboat as it traveled Northward with many white families trying to escape the coming Civil War. Big secrets are revealed. Family is at the heart of story and drives the narrative forward. What we all would do to protect family.

This story starts out in an almost familiar way as the story primarily of Huck Finn, but seen from Jim's perspective. It is a boy's adventure on the Mississippi. But then as they are forced to make their respective separate ways, it becomes the story of a desperate but resourceful slave trying to save himself and his family against nearly insurmountable odds. Seeing the injustices heaped upon Jim and other slaves, the reader can only root for Jim to make it to freedom, but the damage done to him and many white people too cannot be so easily undone.

This was a very good book that I couldn’t put fun and finished in two days. It’s about a slave named Jim who runs away and his little friend, Huck Finn follows him. The book had me on the edge of my seat as they faced trials and uncertainty on their journey to freedom. In the end, Jim returns to his town to rescue his wife and daughter. After finding they have been sold, he sets off again to find them. The book ends abruptly leaving you wondering what happens, but it is very good.▪️Language - mild▪️Sex scenes - raping slaves▪️Violence - beating slaves

I just finished reading JAMES this morning. The novel does deserve the Pulitzer Prize because of its writing as well as the story. In a fast reading 300 pages (I read it over the weekend), Everett tells not only an exciting story but somehow manages to show the reader the horrors of slavery.I was a bit put off in the beginning because this book starts at the eve of the Civil War and Mark Twain wrote Huckleberry Finn in 1885. However, I believe the author meant to use Huck Finn almost as a side character although Huck was in most of the scenes.I learned a lot and felt like Percival Everett’s was similar to Ernest Hemingway: concise, clear and emotional.

This story managed to evoke Mark Twain’s candid and satirical style at some points, filling me with wry amusement and fascination. It simultaneously filled me with the pathos, rage, and heartbreak of watching an enlightened soul be systematically pushed into the path of the destroyer. Thank you for this story Mr. Everett, may we all be as unfailingly committed to doing the best thing we can as James was.

"Looks like you’re my slave for a little while.” This offended him. “I’m no slave.” “Do you want to be rowing?” I asked. “No,” I supplied his answer. “Are you getting paid for rowing? No. Are you rowing because you’re afraid of me and what I might do to you? Yes, Judge Thatcher.” “I’m no slave.” I pointed the barrel of the pistol at his face. “Row faster,” I said. He did.----What a mighty piece of work. The familiar story told in an unfamiliar tone. In a current American environment in which we are being told not to think or to reason or to consider others, this story is so clear and so obvious and yet so totally unexpected. Thank you for this brilliant vision.

Interesting and engaging and incredibly well-written! It is a must read for many reasons...it tells of courage, bias, devotion, class status and the ingenuity for survival and freedom. Even if you haven't read Huckleberry Finn, you are able to ascertain the adventures of both Huck and Jim (James) in a more enlightening way. It is educational and it shows the cruelty displayed by the white man upon the black man and his families. Their servitude as slaves is almost impenetrable for some; while for Jim it is a barrier to his intellectual liberty and mental and physical survival.

I don’t even know where to begin with this book—James completely floored me. It’s one of the most powerful, human, and thought-provoking novels I’ve read in a long time. Percival Everett doesn’t just tell a story—he reveals what was hidden all along.We think we know the story of Huck and Jim, but James turns that familiarity on its head in the most brilliant way. This time, we see everything through James’s eyes—his thoughts, his strategies for survival, his sharp wit, his pain, and his hope. He’s no longer a background figure. He’s the center. And he’s unforgettable.What amazed me most was the language—the way Everett writes with such clarity and control, but also with moments of poetry and defiance. There were parts I had to stop and reread, not because they were confusing, but because they were so quietly devastating or quietly triumphant.This isn’t just a novel. It’s a reckoning. It made me think deeply about voice, freedom, and the way stories are told—and who gets to tell them.I finished James and sat still for a while, just taking it all in. It’s that kind of book. Read it. Talk about it. Sit with it. It stays with you.

Percival Everett's James follows Jim, who, along with Huck Finn, embarks on a journey down the Mississippi River. Jim is fleeing slavery, while Huck is escaping his abusive father while remaining loyal to his friend.The narrative powerfully conveys the dehumanizing reality of slavery: the constant threat of being bought and sold, the relentless pursuit, the denial of identity and rights, arbitrary violence, sexual assault, and the forced separation of families. The book poignantly illustrates the racism of the south that stripped enslaved individuals of their humanity.Spoiler alert but not shared: A surprising plot twist added an unexpected layer to the story and the author’s message.While well-written and a relatively quick read, some sections, particularly the extended chase sequences, felt somewhat slow and simplistic.I will be more intrigued by Everett’s potential sequel to James. If written, it will be fascinating to learn what becomes of Jim and his family during the Civil War and then Reconstruction. How does this educated former slave rebuild his life after escaping the South's oppressive system? Now free, what social barriers, prejudices, and hardships do he and his family encounter as they strive for a better future for themselves and their descendants? This is an underrepresented narrative in much of today’s writing on this subject, and I believe Everett could tell it compellingly.This is the second book I've read by Percival Everett. His novel Erasure was a five-star masterpiece. James, while different, was surprising to me based on my experience with Erasure but James was certainly thought-provoking."You can see by my review, I was captured by Jim, the main character. What is to become of this man and his family?

I had high hopes for this book as soon as I heard about it. It accomplished far more than exceed my expectations.Mark Twain is one of my favorite writers, one whose absurdist humor I try to emulate in some of my own writing.And Jim was always one of my favorite characters, often the ONE voice of reason in the story of Huck Finn who would regularly highlight just how absurd many well-received notions are.That’s without even getting into the racist notions on display in the original Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.Everett’s James is a significant departure from Twain’s Jim. Not just in story content (the last 25% or so is completely different), but also in style. Part of Twain’s brilliance was balancing humor with serious/ugly content to create a sort of “gut punch” effect, the old trick where a writer gets you to laugh at something absurd, only to give you tear-jerking whiplash with something terrible a moment later.In Everett’s retelling, he turns down the humor and turns up the serious stuff, but it has the same effect. The gut punches come early, but soft at first, barely noticeable. Then they get harder and more frequent the deeper into the story you get.Some Twain/Finn fans may take issue with these departures from the original, but let’s face facts: the perspectives of both Mark Twain and Huck Finn come from a position of semi-naive privilege and a desire to have a good time. Neither of them are capable of telling a “true” story for Jim, whose experience was naturally way more serious and painful than anything an adventure-loving white boy could fully relate to.With this in mind, Perceval Everett brought “truth” to the story of James, and quite honestly wrote a story that’s more “true” in general.Now that I finished it, I’m not exactly comfortable with referring to it as a “retelling” of Huck Finn. This is not Huck Finn’s or Mark Twain’s story retold. This is the story of James, and it may be one of the most important works in the history of American literature.

James: A Novel,Percival EverettMany have attempted to build the sequel to America’s greatest novel, Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The following are mentioned in ‘Whatever Happened to Huckleberry Finn’, Robert Long Foreman, The Missouri Review. February 1, 2018.Mark Twain finished two. ‘Tom Sawyer Abroad’ 1894, ‘Tom Sawyer, Detective’ 1896. Unfinished ‘Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer Among the Indians’.‘The Boy in His Winter: An American Novel’, Norman Lock, Bellevue Library Press 2014. The Raft becomes a time machine. Huck and Jim return from year 2077. Inspired by H.G. Wells as much as Mark Twain.‘Huck Out West’ Robert Coover, W.W. Norton & Co. 2017. Huck spends time with Lakotah Sioux. Tom is a federal overMarshal. Gold struck in South Dakota. Tom ready to slaughter Indians for Manifest Destiny.The Adventures of Joe Harper, Phong Nguyen, Outtpost19, 2016. Huck meets old Hannibal pal Joe Harper. They make a new friend, Lee, a Chinaman. Story picks up Lee as storyteller.‘My Jim’, Nancy Rawles, Three Rivers Press, 2005. The story of Sadie Watson, Jim’s wife and mother of their two children. What happens to Sadie after Jim runs away.‘The True Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ John Seelye Northwestern University Press 1970‘The Further Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ Australian writer Greg Matthews, Crown Publishers; First Edition (December 12, 1988).Mr. Foreman did not include David Carkeet’s, ‘I Been There Before’, Harper Collins, Jan1, 1985. Another Time Machine book as a sequel. Mark Twain reawakens with the return of Haley’s Comet.I wanted to share the titles of sequels to Huck. Several writers realized what many critics pointed out. The book doesn’t seem finished. Mark Twain ‘wrapped up’ pretty much everything in his manuscript. However, there seemed to be something missing. Ernest Hemingway believed Twain wrote too much. He wrote that ‘readers should stop reading when Jim dies’. By that, Hemingway referred to the arrival of the King and the Duke and Jim is ‘sold’ back into slavery. If you stop reading at that point, you miss some iconic humor, and scenes that reveal the further growth in Huck’s character.Mark Twain may have felt pressured to get ‘er done. He worked on the Huck manuscript for seven years. It has been known for a publisher to pressure a writer to finish. Off the commercial success The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, the publishers wanted a follow up to capitalize on sales. Seven years was pushing it. But Huck refused to be rushed. Huck grew and developed at his own pace in his own place, inside the mind of Mark Twain.And now, along comes ‘James’, by Percival Everett. I believe ‘James’ is by far the most ambitious sequel ever attempted. In the original, Jim is a full grown man. To stay alive and safe in the world of dangerous world of American racial slavery, Jim learned to master many tricks, many behaviors. He shared that information with his children to enable them to survive.Everett is adamant that James is neither a retelling, nor a sequel. I agree with him. It is not a sequel because the two novels cover the same sequence of events. It is not a retelling because the first is Huck’s story. James has his own story to tell.In both stories, the characters separate for very good reasons. While apart, each must depend on his own wit, their own wiles to survive. People do get hurt based on those individual decisions. They live in dangerous times.

My first adventure reading on my own was Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, then everything else by Mark Twain I could find. Twain was a sharp critic on human rights, and wrote of times when humans owned humans in the USA. As a white, middle class kid growing up in the Pacific Northwest, the world described by Twain was impossible to imagine. Then I grew up and moved around some, but continued to read Twain. His prose gave the reader the understanding that he opposed slavery at every level, and hated that white people would go around the world to bring them religion and clothes.The story of Jim was told with compassion and as a lesson to teach people to treat people like people, not things, but the hard part of being Jim - well, that was not part of the children's classic, and for good reason.In his book "Erasure", the author poked fun at the expectation of "ethnic writers", while in "James", Mr. Everett turns his insight to the very real desperation of this fictional man. The novel starts out with the easy pace of a hot summers day, but quickly turns on our hero, husband, father, slave -- to face a situation that no one should have ever faced in this country. We see that Jim has taken advantage of opportunities in secret to learn to read, write, and speak the forbidden "white language". He teaches his family what he has learned, and instructs them to continue to speak "slave" outside of their home.When the rumor floats around that Jim is to be sold, but not his family, he runs.The horrors of what Jim, now James, experiences are interlaced with parts of the original Huck Finn story, which to me, added my emotional investment, are laid bare in a way Twain could not have. Twian stories often have, like good fables, a moral, and while only the REAL bad guy gets his, we see that even the "good" slave owners are not much different from the bad guys. The opportunity for personal redemption we see in Twains' other characters is absent in James.The story has some very interesting guest stars, such as Voltare, and the idea of freedom is discussed in the exhausted dreams James has while on the run. The ability of some of the founding fathers to waffle on slavery, against a nationwide slave trade, but okay with states.... these conversations could go on longer and it would have been alright with me.Mr. Everett pulls no punches in the dilemma that James runs into to save himself in order to save his family. The hard choices James makes are not only made by a father and husband, but a man who is treated as property.The book is very well done, and the audio performance is intense. I think Mark Twain would be proud the way James turns out. five THOUSAND stars!