⭐⭐⭐⭐ ¼ (Goodreads: )
GENRE: Historical Fiction
PART OF A SERIES? No
WORTH READING? Yes
SUMMARY:
James is a bold reimagining of a familiar American classic by shifting the spotlight to a character long relegated to the margins.
Told from the perspective of James, an enslaved man journeying through a deeply divided society, the novel combines adventure, wit and sharp social commentary with an exploration of identity and survival. When James flees down the Mississippi, he does not know that Huck Finn will join him.
Opening lines: “Those little bastards were hiding out there in the tall grass.”
“I was as much scared as angry, but where does a slave put anger?”
When Huck asks James if people are a part of nature, James replies: “If’n dey is, den dey ain’t no good part. Da rest o’ nature don’ hardly talk to no human peoples anymo.” Which, come to think of it, is a very astute observation.
Speaking of Huck, the friendship these two characters form is really beautiful, made even more special by their age and cultural differences.
When James starts reading a book, he says: “I was somewhere else. I was not on one side of that damn river… I was not on the Mississippi. I was not in Missouri.” And this is my favourite aspect of reading in a nutshell. Everett has used his character of James to explain perfectly what I’m sure many of us feel.
One anachronism I picked up was that James says he ‘took a knee’… I have checked and my instincts were correct. This was not a phrase used during the antebellum period; it is a 20th-century phrase.
I felt totally immersed in James and wanted to steal away at every opportunity to read it. I had trouble rating it between 4.25 and 4.5 stars. I can completely understand why this book was the winner of the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. I found it thought-provoking, clever and very human.
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