Nobel Prize winning author Mr. Ernest Hemingway wrote that “[a]ll American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.” In the last 20 years, Mr. Mark Twain’s novel has faced rebuttal because its eponymous character uses the N-word 219 times, according to cbsnews.com. However, in 2024, Mr. Percival Everett published his own novel, James. Mr. Everett wrote this novel from the perspective of Jim, Huck’s enslaved friend with whom he adventures down the Mississippi River. Adventures of Huckleberry Finn read by itself offers a narrow key hole into southern American life pre-Emancipation Proclamation while James offers a new perspective on Jim’s narrative. When read side by side, the two novels support and counter one another, creating a story that does not rely solely on one narration.
James won the National Book Award in 2024. Although it is a retelling of an old story, Mr. Everett reclaims the story of Huck Finn by giving Jim a voice. In fact, he gives Jim a two-sided persona. His first persona is the one he shows on the surface and that he presents to white people, particularly his masters. His other persona, which is his true self, is wise and philosophical. Mr. Everett crafts Jim in such a way so readers realize their own prejudice. Clearly, beneath Jim’s dialogue there are deep layers of thoughts and motives. However, in the original text, readers are blind-sided toward Huck’s own narration and they forget bias. Dr. Cristina Baptista, Upper School English Teacher, Perspectives Advisor, and Chair of Committee on Community and Belonging, who teaches both Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and now James, commented on how reading James made her rethink Jim’s character.
“James reminds us that throughout the entire time in which Twain’s Jim is on the raft with Huck, a fugitive in the slave states hoping to make it to freedom, that he must be worried about being caught,” Dr. Baptista said. “Jim must be worried about what is happening with his family back ‘home’ (a term I use loosely, as can the enslaved who do not even own themselves ever find ‘home’?). Jim must be worried about how the other enslaved people at Miss Watson’s house will get by without him to help with firewood, chores, and the like. In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, whether because Twain was limited by his child-narrator’s vision or simply didn’t think of it, we get only a few slivers of Jim’s humanity, and only when Huck perceives it.”
Certainly, what is most pertinent about James is that readers see Huck’s experience, too, through a new lens. Mr. Everett even choses to deepen the extent of Huck and Jim’s relationship. In addition, he casts light on the difficulty of their friendship, as Huck is a young white boy and Jim is a black adult. Junior Annie Slocum read both Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and James this year in the American Literature Honors class. Annie discussed how James broadened her perspective of the original novel.
“James reinvents the story of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn because as readers, we are able to reflect upon Huck’s reliability, as well as the true depths of Huck and Jim’s relationship,” Annie said. “In Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, […] we only hear Huck’s narration. While we read what Jim is saying, we never hear his true thoughts and motivations. James allows us, as readers, to reflect upon what Jim says in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and what he doesn’t say, and what this misrepresentation reflects about slavery.”
Toward the middle of the novel, Mr. Everett’s narrative begins to forge its own path. In fact, he even sets the story 20 years later than Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, so that Huck and Jim’s “adventure” overlaps with the beginning of the Civil War. This heightens the stakes for Jim as the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 is now in effect. Certainly, Mr. Everett’s change underscores the value of stepping into someone else’s shoes. As readers, we not only feel for Jim, but dwell in his very mind for over 300 pages. Dr. Baptista spoke about how James reframed her perspective on Mr. Twain’s novel.
“So, as I read James, I felt angry for Jim,” Dr. Baptista said. “I felt angry at myself for not realizing just how deep his pain at being separated from his family must be. I felt shocked that I never thought to consider how being a fugitive slave in particular was even more terrifying than simply being an enslaved person navigating the white world of mid-19th-century America. So, James, juxtaposed with Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, forces us to confront our blind spots. It encourages us to start reframing, rethinking, and reawakening our own abilities to hold multiple perspectives at once.”
Ultimately, Mr. Everett’s James acts not only as a sequel to a paradoxically both beloved and controversial American classic but also asserts itself as its own literary entity. Just like Jim, James has its own narrative, its own flow and plot. While it reuses characters of Huck and Jim, readers are able to view their personalities from a whole new perspective, creating an entirely new literary classic altogether. Dr. Baptista noted how essential books like James are to the literary canon.
“James is not a correction to, rebuttal of, or rejection of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but it is a companion to that novel just as much as Jim and Huck, two unlikely friends who share feelings of loneliness, abuse, uncertainty, and fear of all kinds, are companions to one another,” Dr. Baptista said. “I like to think that these novels can sit side-by-side on a bookshelf, perhaps whispering back and forth to one another, continuing to build a very real life in some alternative world where some mixture of Twain’s Huck and Everett’s Huck, Twain’s Jim and Everett’s James, can not just go their separate ways (as they do in both novels) but, rather, share that ‘Territory ahead,’ as Twain writes, and make a space that is ready for and welcoming to all people.”
Featured Image by Emily Shull ’25
