James by Percival Everett Doubleday 2024, 320 pgs.
What an extraordinary book this one is! The main character–the title character–is the Black man who was on the raft with Huckleberry Finn in the familiar classic written in 1884 by Mark Twain. The setting in time is just before the Civil War; the place is Hannibal, Missouri. In this version of the story, loosely based on Twain’s plot, James and Huck are trying to escape their unsatisfactory lives: James from slavery and Huck from a malevolent father. The two characters need one another.
James and Huck meet many other interesting and well-described characters. Some come directly from Twain’s original novel, others are newly imagined. Some are kind and helpful at great cost to themselves; others are either violently unhelpful or slyly manipulative. James can see through all of them; Huck is still naive but is learning to sense where the danger lies. And there is danger everywhere for a slave trying to escape.
The focus of the desperate journey for James is the goal of finding a way to buy the freedom of his wife and daughter. Despite the urgency of every moment of every day, there is humor laced through the story. The most entertaining part is the issue of language. James is bilingual. That is, he normally speaks “slave,” but occasionally forgets himself and breaks into fluent standard English. He is well read, having “borrowed” books from the library of a distinguished judge in town, another part of him that must be concealed. James’s speech becomes more erudite as the plot moves along.
The narrative is lively; it moves fast. It reaches out and grabs the reader; you can’t put it down. Because most of the slaves in the story cannot read and have no access to newspapers, they are only vaguely aware of the war that is just getting underway, and pessimistic about any positive change that may come from the struggle between North and South. Their world has always been bleak, always hopeless, daily grim beyond measure; they have no grounds for, or expectation of, improvement. There is no happy ending in this book, just the slightest hint of the smallest possibility that better things may come. It is not a strong hint.
This book is headed for all sorts of awards. It is not a cheerful, happy read, although it has cheerful, happy moments. It is grim and gritty, and it speaks the truth, in prose that is highly successful in portraying an era that we all need to remember.