James, by Percival Everett

 

I really liked this retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the enslaved man Jim's viewpoint. I found the story to be alternately funny and devastating. Written by the author of Erasure, the novel that the film American fiction was based on, you can imagine that James will be provocative and challenge the reader's perspectives about the events that took place in Huck Finn. Everett doesn't disappoint with this book. Telling the story from an adult's perspective and leaving out the many swaths of the original book in which Jim and Huck were separated, the result is a shorter book, but one that is piercing in its insight. I found James both riveting and unforgettable; I couldn't put it down. I read this over the summer for my September book club meeting. We chose to re-read Huck Finn first, which I think was a good approach, given that I hadn't read Huck Finn in 40 years. Reading them in order (Huck Finn, then James) draws your attention even more strongly to the way the stories are told and the emphases placed on specific events by the respective authors.