❤️ loved this book because...
This is an extraordinary book by a wonderful writer. I have been a big fan of Percival Everett ever since I read Erasure, over 20 years ago. As a writer, he is engaged at every level, experimental, bold, witty, funny, intellectually and politically committed. James is a celebration of and a profound literary encounter with Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884). Everett retells the story from the point of view of "Jim" the runaway slave. But this is much more than a re-telling; it is both an interpretation of Twain’s story and a subversive transformation of its meanings. What is so masterful in Everett’s writing is his control of the literary registers he uses. He can write tense adventure sequences, hilarious farce, deeply moving scenes of reckoning, violent action, and absorbing domestic fiction. This is a story of survival and revenge. I couldn’t stop reading and am now getting my breath back so that I can read it again.
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🐇 I couldn't put it down
45 authors picked James as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2024
'Truly extraordinary books are rare, and this is one of them' - Roddy Doyle, Booker Prize-winning author of Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha
James by Percival Everett is a profound and ferociously funny meditation on identity, belonging and the sacrifices we make to protect the ones we love, which reimagines The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. From the author of The Trees, shortlisted for the Booker Prize, and Erasure, adapted into the Oscar-winning film American Fiction.
The Mississippi River, 1861. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new…