NOVEMBER 2024 READING

James, by Percival Everett

Published 2024 Doubleday, 320 pp ISBN-13 978-0385550369

Book Club Meeting

November 26, 7:00 PM
Hosted by: Deb Fisher

Book selected by: Nancy Hart/Cathy Enz

Snack provided by: Deb Fisher

Wine provided by: Beth Kanalley, Patty Ard

Accessibility

Print and Large Print

Finger Lakes Library System (print and large print)

E-book

Finger Lakes Library System
NY Public Library

E-Audiobook

Finger Lakes Library System
NY Public Library

Percival Everett: About the Author

"Percival Everett is the author of over thirty books, including Telephone, Dr No, The Trees, which was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize and won the 2022 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize, and Erasure, which was adapted into the major Oscar-winning film American Fiction.

He has received the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award and the PEN Center USA Award for Fiction, has been a Pulitzer Prize finalist, and is Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.

James was a New York Times and Sunday Times bestseller in hardback, and it has been shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize and the 2024 National Book Award, and was a finalist for the Orwell Prize for Fiction.

Percival Everett lives in Los Angeles."

SOURCE

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"In a 2002 interview, the prolific novelist Percival Everett explained that 'my mission has always been to disappear,' a reference to a concept coined by the French theorist Roland Barthes. In an essay titled ‘The Death of the Author’, Barthes argued that the ‘meaning’ of a book lies in the hands of the reader, and not the head of the writer.

Yet, while Everett’s books are certainly mysterious, shape-shifting, metafictional, and full of clever tricks and misdirections, the author’s presence is a beating heart throughout his writing.

Everett’s body of work is significant: to date he has written over twenty novels, a handful of short story collections, a sizeable stack of poetry collections, and a children’s book. His books span a huge range of genres and styles, the author’s experimentation with the boundaries of each a common thread across his works.

Through his storytelling, Everett presents unflinching and profound interrogations of race, class and inequality in America, and expansive philosophical questions are laced throughout his stories – evidence of his undergraduate studies and lifelong fascination with the subject.

Everett’s writing sings with potent observations on human relationships to others and themselves, and is tempered by his trademark sense of curiosity, satirical wry humour and playfulness."

SOURCE

James

The Booker Prizes Library Reading Guide: James by Percival Everett

"Synopsis

A profound meditation on identity, belonging and the sacrifices we make to protect the ones we love, which reimagines Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Huck’s companion, Jim.

1861, the Mississippi River. When the enslaved Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a new owner in New Orleans and separated from his wife and daughter forever, he decides to hide on nearby Jackson’s Island until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck Finn has faked his own death to escape his violent father who recently returned to town. Thus begins a dangerous and transcendent journey by raft along the Mississippi River, toward the elusive promise of free states and beyond. As James and Huck begin to navigate the treacherous waters, each bend in the river holds the promise of both salvation and demise.

With rumours of a brewing war, James must face the burden he carries: the family he is desperate to protect and the constant lie he must live, and together, the unlikely pair must face the most dangerous odyssey of them all…

The main characters

James

James, initially introduced as Jim, lives in 19th-century Missouri and is enslaved under the ownership of Miss Watson. He is a fiercely intelligent man who, away from the eyes and ears of white people, is literate and well-spoken. Upon learning that he is about to be sold and transported to New Orleans – a fate that could separate him forever from his wife, Sadie, and daughter, Lizzie – James escapes and begins a journey to reclaim his freedom.

Huck

Huck is a mischievous, free-spirited young boy who, at first, delights in tormenting Jim alongside his friend, Tom Sawyer. But when Huck flees his abusive father, he hides on Jackson’s Island and crosses paths with Jim, who is also on the run. Together, the two embark on a journey down the Mississippi River where their friendship grows, and Huck begins to see there is far more to Jim than his slave status.

What the Booker Prize judges said

‘At its core, the novel examines the dehumanising effects of slavery and the pervasive, institutionalised racism that underpins it. These themes powerfully resonate with ongoing struggles against systemic oppression and the legacy of slavery in contemporary society.

‘Jim’s use of language and his reclamation of his own identity speaks to the universal need for self-determination in the face of oppression. This struggle for autonomy and agency remains highly relevant in today’s politicised climate on a global scale.’

What the author said

‘Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is the source of my novel. I hope that I have written the novel that Twain did not and also could not have written. I do not view the work as a corrective, but rather I see myself in conversation with Twain.’

‘I hope that no one thinks that my novel is about slavery. There’s a difference between writing a story about people who happen to be slaves and writing a story about slavery.’ "

SOURCE