Author(s): Percival Everett

Novel | USA

From the Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Trees, James is an enthralling and ferociously funny novel that leaves an indelible mark, forcing us to see Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in a wholly new and transformative light.

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, toward the elusive promise of free states and beyond. As James and Huck begin to 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 must face the most dangerous odyssey of them all . . .

From the shadows of Huck Finn’s mischievous spirit, Jim emerges to reclaim his voice, defying the conventions that have consigned him to the margins.  

James has the potential to become a classic . . . thrilling, bold and profound * The Sunday Times *
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
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
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 *
This is the work of an American master at the peak of his powers * Financial Times *
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 *
Magnificent . . . [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 *
2024 . . . might be the year of Percival Everett . . . [James is a] systematic and forensic and laugh-out-loud-funny deconstruction of America and race * Scotsman *
If you liked Demon Copperhead, by Barbara Kingsolver, read James, by Percival Everett * Washington Post *
[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)

Author Biography: Percival Everett is the author of over thirty published works, including Zulus, Erasure, I Am Not Sidney Poitier, Assumption, Percival Everett by Virgil Russell, Telephone, The Trees, Dr. No and James. A Guggenheim Fellow and Pulitzer Prize Finalist, Everett has won the PEN Oakland/Josephine Miles Literary Award, the Academy Award in Literature, the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction, and the Windham-Campbell Literature Prize for Fiction. In 2022, The Trees was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Percival Everett lives in Los Angeles, CA, where he is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.