Review of Percival Everett's James

“I worte myself into being”: Everett’s “Reimagination” of Twain’s Huck Finn

. . . Everett’s James “reimagines” one of the most quintessential American classics, Twain’s Huck Finn, a novel that, in Earnest Hemingway’s words, marked the beginning of all modern American literature. Everett’s narrator, Jim—who reinscribes himself as James—tells the story of the antebellum South in his amphibian escapade along the bends of the Mississippi. Everett’s twenty-fourth novel does more than replacing the narrative perspective of a playful and rebellious Huck who runs away from his abusive father and “civilizing missions” of his caretakers. Everett amplifies the tenuous agency of Twain’s Jim, allowing James to show readers what a teenage white boy could not perceive. James refashions his dynamic agency through his seamlessly signifying linguistic maneuvers, intellectual insight, graphic portrayal of the horrors of slavery, and fearsome revolting spirit. . . .

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