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James
Percival Everett
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Description for James
Paperback.
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024
From the author of The Trees, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and Erasure, adapted into the Oscar-winning film American Fiction.
'Truly extraordinary books are rare, and this is one of them' – Roddy Doyle, Booker Prize-winning author of Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha
Enthralling and ferociously funny, James by Percival Everett is a profound meditation on identity, belonging and the sacrifices we make to protect the ones we love. It is also a bold reimagining of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, as the enslaved Jim emerges to reclaim his voice and ... Read moredefy the conventions that have consigned him to the margins.
The Mississippi River, 1861. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan.
Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town. Thus begins a dangerous and transcendent journey by raft along the Mississippi River, towards the elusive promise of the free states and beyond. As James and Huck navigate the treacherous waters, each bend in the river holds the promise of both salvation and demise.
With rumours of a brewing war, James must face the burden he carries: the family he is desperate to protect and the constant lie he must live. And together, the unlikely pair embark on the most dangerous, and life-changing, odyssey of them all . . .
'A towering achievement' – the 2024 Booker Prize judges
‘Who should read this book? Every single person in the country’ – Ann Patchett, bestselling author of Tom Lake
'Funny, wise, gracious; this may be Everett's best book yet' – Bonnie Garmus, bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry
'Thrilling, bold and profound' – The Sunday Times
'This is the work of an American master at the peak of his powers' – Financial Times
'Magnificent . . . Everett’s most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful ' – The New York Times
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Product Details
Place of Publication
London, United Kingdom
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 2 to 4 working days
About Percival Everett
Percival Everett is the author of over thirty books, including So Much Blue, Telephone, Dr No and The Trees, which was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize and won the 2022 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. He has received the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the PEN Center USA Award for Fiction, has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and is Distinguished Professor ... Read moreof English at the University of Southern California. His novel Erasure has been adapted into the major Oscar-winning film American Fiction. He lives in Los Angeles. Show Less
Reviews for James
A captivating response to Mark Twain’s classic that is both a bold exploration of a dark chapter in history and a testament to the resilience of the human spirit
The 2024 Booker Prize Judges I’m demanding that you read Percival Everett’s novel James, in which Everett takes the camera from Twain’s Huck Finn and hands it to the slave, ... Read moreJim. Truly extraordinary books are rare, and this is one of them
Roddy Doyle, Booker Prize-winning author of Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha This is the work of an American master at the peak of his powers
Financial Times
James has the potential to become a classic . . . thrilling, bold and profound
The Sunday Times
James is funny and horrifying, brilliant and riveting. In telling the story of Jim instead of Huckleberry Finn, Percival Everett delivers a powerful, necessary corrective to both literature and history. I found myself cheering both the writer and his hero. Who should read this book? Every single person in the country
Ann Patchett, bestselling author of Tom Lake Percival Everett is a giant of American letters, and James is a canon-shatteringly great book. Unforgiving and compassionate, beautiful and brutal, a tragedy and a farce, this brilliant novel rewrites literary history to let us hear the voices it has long suppressed
Hernan Diaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Trust Pure brilliance. Funny, wise, gracious; this may be Everett's best book yet
Bonnie Garmus, bestselling author of Lessons in Chemistry Gripping, painful, funny, horrifying . . . a consummate performance to the last
The Observer
Both a page-turner and a profound meditation on the ramifications of slavery and self-hood . . . Luminous
TLS
A classic novel overhauled by a modern master
The Daily Telegraph
Percival Everett is an essential writer and James may be his greatest novel yet
i
Fantastically entertaining . . . James’s solo adventures take on a life that doesn’t so much rival the original [The Adventures of Huckelberry Finn] as defiantly stand alone
Daily Mail
A sharp novel . . . You may think you know Huck Finn’s story but this version breathes new life into it with unexpected twists and turns making it a must-read.
Daily Mirror
Majestic . . . [James] is Everett’s most thrilling novel, but also his most soulful
The New York Times
American literature’s philosopher king — and its sharpest satirist
The New Yorker
[An] ingenious retelling of The Adverntures of Huckleberry Finn . . . Everett has outdone himself
Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) The audacious and prolific Everett dives into the very heart of Twain's epochal odyssey
Kirkus (Starred Review) An absolutely essential read
Booklist (Starred Review) Clever, soulful, and full of righteous rage . . . James is destined to become a modern classic
Esquire.com
To call James a retelling would be an injustice. Everett sends Mark Twain’s classic through the looking glass. What emerges is no longer a children’s book, but a blood-soaked historical novel stripped of all ornament . . . Genius
The Atlantic
‘[A] careful and thought-provoking auditing of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . . . broadening our understanding of an endangered classic by bringing out the tragedy behind the comic façade
The Wall Street Journal
In a fever dream of a retelling, the new reigning king of satire, Percival Everett, has turned one of America's best loved classics, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, upside down . . . a startling homage and a new classic in its own right
NPR.org
Heir to Mark Twain’s satirical vision, Everett turns a boyhood memoir into a neo-fugitive slave narrative thriller . . . a provocative, enlightening work of literary art
The Boston Globe
[A] sly response to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn . . . James both honors and interrogates Huck Finn, along with the nation that reveres it
The Washington Post
Once you’ve picked up Everett’s James, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, you’ll know that only Everett could take on the task of allowing Mark Twain’s character Jim to show what was missing from the original story
The Los Angeles Times
Audacious. . . Everett [gives] Jim – who, we learn, prefers to be called James – his agency, letting his intelligence and compassion shine through
Time
[Percival Everett is a] prolific genius . . . If anyone is poised to casually write a masterpiece that not only becomes instant canon but also sets a brush fire to the current ones it stands upon, it’s Everett. And that’s exactly what he’s done with James
Elle
Everett's latest dazzling novel is a supplement and a rebuke, a corrective and a celebration of Mark Twain's [The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn]
Scotland on Sunday
[James] abounds in satire and irony . . . Like Kafka, [Percival Everett] is capable at once of being scarily funny and chillingly serious
The Herald
By recasting Twain’s flawed classic as a portrait of an enslaved man – in all the fullness of his courage, humanity and humour – Everett leaves a meaningful mark on American letters
The Irish Times
The wit of the writing and the fascinating examination into the freeing power of language preserves the charm and action-packed adventure of [The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn], while cleverly – and at times harrowingly – deconstructing its flaws
Irish Mail on Sunday
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