'James' Is One of the 100 Must-Read Books of 2024

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With his best-selling 24th novel, Percival Everett offers an audacious reimagining of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of Huck’s enslaved friend Jim—who, as the book’s title suggests, prefers to be called James. Everett doesn’t stray far from the major events of Twain’s novel. Instead, he creates a poignant parallel story that recontextualizes the complicated modern classic. In Everett’s novel, James is literate but for his own safety uses a vernacular around white people that he calls a “slave filter.” As the duo makes their way down the Mississippi River, James finds himself in the driver’s seat, having to grapple with decisions that have life-or-death consequences. By giving Twain’s secondary character much-deserved agency, Everett allows him to be something he couldn’t be before: the hero.

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