Percival Everett’s new novel imagines Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Huck’s enslaved sidekick, Jim. But 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. James conjures a vision of the antebellum South as a scene of pervasive terror. Everett recognizes that American slavery’s true history is not revealed in the movements of great armies or the speeches of politicians. Its realities lie in the details of life lived under conditions of unceasing brutality—the omnipresent whip, the daily interplay of dread and panic, the rage that can find no outlet.
Read Full Article »
