In “James,” Percival Everett Does More than Reimagine “Huck Finn”

Percival Everett’s new novel James is described as a reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the point of view of the enslaved Jim. On some level, that assessment could be true—Everett does borrow the outline of the plot. But it is the characters, not the plot, that truly make up a narrative, showing us what it’s like to exist in their world. So in my reading, I see little traces of Twain’s Jim in Everett’s.

Jim (or James, as we come to call him) is a force to reckon with even if it is something he’s not aware of at the time when he decides to run because he refuses to be sold to a man in New Orleans. On Jackson Island, while hiding out and thinking about how to reunite with his wife and daughter, Jim bumps into Huckleberry Finn who, in line with Twain’s plot, has faked his own death. The two seek shelter in a cave where Jim gets bitten by a rattlesnake and in a feverish delirium, is visited by Voltaire—yep, that French philosopher. This is one of the many scenes where Everett’s irony shines as Jim argues about slavery and race with old white philosophers, poking holes at their hollow claims for equality. Jim, we learn, is intelligent and witty. He reads. He writes. He maneuvers language, speaking only in a dialect around white people. As we follow him and Huck sailing on the Mississippi, encountering racist con men like the Duke and the King, and some not-so-obviously-racist ones like Daniel Emmett, we realize that Jim can learn to harness anger that has been building for years, that he can (and does) take control of his life.

Percival Everett needs no introduction. His work is wide-ranging—notable titles include The Trees (finalist for the Booker Prize and the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award), and Erasure which was most recently adapted into the film American Fiction, starring Jeffrey Wright. In conversation, Everett’s speech, like his prose, is measured, thoughtful. We spoke over Zoom about deconstructing freedom, anger as a tool to reclaim agency, justice being asymmetrical for the marginalized and more. 

Bareerah Ghani: Language is a complex throughline of the novel. In an early scene, Jim offers children a lesson on how to speak in coded �slave” language, which is essentially �correct incorrect grammar.” He says, �White folks expect us to sound a certain way.” This got me thinking about how I’ve encountered people who are surprised that I speak good English despite being raised in Pakistan, and suddenly speaking well in English gives me an authority to take up space that I couldn’t otherwise. What are your thoughts on �incorrect/broken” English being associated with inferiority and even illiteracy? 

Percival Everett: Well, increasingly, at least in the United States—and I see it also in Britain—correct grammatical usage is not all that common anymore. Bad English is practiced throughout journalism in the U.S. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard sportscasters lack any concept of a past participle. So there’s that. But language has always been, you know, a dynamic and fluid creature. It’s always changing, not only meanings, but usage and not only slang, but common usage. So it’s hard to simply specify something as good English. That said, accents and poor grammatical construction are frequently used to designate inferiority. And it sort of causes people to forget that there is a distinction to be made between stupidity and ignorance. There are people who don’t have the privilege to learn correct grammar who are geniuses, whereas there are many people who use English perfectly and they’re idiots. So none of it is a clear marker but language has always been used by the oppressors to isolate the oppressed.

BG: There’s been a lot of talk about this novel being a reimagined Huckleberry Finn and I can see that in terms of the plot. But the protagonist, Jim—he’s your own character. A man seeking freedom. I love Jim, I love his voice. And a critical component to his journey toward reclaiming agency is Jim embracing his anger. I am curious about your thoughts on anger as a luxury for the marginalized but a necessity for resistance?

PE: Anger is necessary with the caveat that that anger is controlled. There’s a difference between rage and outrage. To go into the fight with only rage negates strategy. The outrage can persist and needs to persist. One of the failings of American culture is that its outrage only lasts ten days at any given time and then it disappears into other news stories. So yes, the anger is necessary but what’s also necessary is an understanding that the anger is justified—not acting out of anger, but understanding that the anger should be there. And those are slightly different things.

BG: Absolutely. What about in the instance where it is justified, but the mainstream narrative does not justify it?

PE: Well, it is justified for those who feel it. My point is that anger is never unjustified but it requires some second order thought to act outside the anger in order to address it.

BG: So I’ve been thinking about liberation these days, given everything that’s happening in the world. And your novel got me thinking about freedom in more complex ways. So for example, Judge Thatcher is free in a physical sense. But mentally and morally he’s held captive to social doctrine that perpetuates slavery. He can’t think for himself, or allow his moral conscience to guide him. And then speaking about contemporary day, where we have our social media hashtags and like you said, American culture does not allow a movement for justice to last beyond the ten days. There is a lot of performative activism happening. I’m wondering how you deconstruct freedom and agency.

PE:  Well, I think the notion of confinement perhaps should be expanded. Using Judge Thatcher as an example, you stated quite nicely, he is actually in his own way, enslaved in his thinking. It’s not an excuse for the character at all and it might even be convenient for someone in that position. But he is certainly, because of his culture, trapped in this world and that’s really what Huck is facing. As a young person he’s trying to navigate through this wilderness and emerge from what has confined the adults around him. Slavery enslaves more than just the slaves. It punishes the slaves but it still exists as a cultural phenomenon that has consequences on everyone.

BG: And what about modern times? Do you think we’re free?

PE: No, not really as you ask it. Perhaps in that Orwellian sense we’re less free every day if one views freedom as not being observed. On the other hand, there’s so many of us that anonymity, it’s kind of a chimera, you know. We’re not anonymous. But we are. There’s so many of us that we just fade into each other. But our own private worlds are our own, but they’re not private. If there are fewer of us that might be even more terrifying than it is. But being humans, and the whole idea of commiseration is, if you can show people that other people are suffering from the same thing, for some reason they suffer less—it makes no sense at all, but that is exactly how America has managed to address and also subvert complaints of the oppressed in the culture. Look! It’s not only happening to you. It’s happening to this group over here, too. And that takes power away instead of adding power to a problem.

BG: That’s so well-articulated. Thank you. You know, now that we’re talking about the mirage of freedom and also, justice, I want to talk about this particularly striking, and heartbreaking moment in the novel where Jim says, �I hated the world that wouldn’t let me apply justice without the certain retaliation of injustice.” This resonated with me because I’ve faced my fair share of racism and Islamophobia, and I’ve met all of that with an acute sense of how I can’t retaliate. I can’t push back because there will be consequences. And I know, currently given what’s happening in the world, a lot of people are facing backlash for standing up for things that they should really be standing up for. How do you contend with justice being asymmetrical for the marginalized and do you think humanity has the capacity or equality?

PE:  I think a lot of us want to be fair but it only takes one person to not be, in a way.  It comes back to that, the Rousseau-Hobbes idea, Are we basically good or basically bad? 

Personally, I think it’s a trap to think about reducing our understanding of humanity as any kind of basic wants and desires and needs. It’s a good question. You know, if you look at human history it doesn’t appear that there’s been any movement collectively toward equality at any time. There’s often been some language about it. When the Greeks talked about equality, it wasn’t for everyone. They weren’t talking about women. They weren’t talking about slaves. They weren’t talking about native peoples. So what does equality mean? Maybe that’s the way humans have always talked about equality. Now, when people talk about equality, they’re not talking about people who have non-traditional gender ideas or feelings. So I don’t know what equality means. I guess the first thing that has to be defined in any discussion is what we means. Once that’s clear, then I guess you can have a conversation about whether things are equal or just more equal for some than for others.

BG: So I suppose you’re saying that it’s been the case for humanity and probably will continue to be? 

PE: Well, I hope that doesn’t continue to be the case. But all evidence points that way, and the rhetoric of so many people within this culture. It also feels as if we’ve taken steps backward. And I don’t know if that’s historically what we have done as a race of animals, move forward and then fall back over and over again.

BG: It’s an unfortunate situation.

PE: But always, the first casualty is language—that is always what’s attacked first. The language is taken away from from people

BG: I was fascinated by the way you’ve brought in Daniel Emmett as a character. Your novel gave me the opportunity to learn more about Minstrels and blackface performance. Then I started thinking about clips I’ve recently seen circulating of comedians Dave Chappelle and Katt Williams calling out Hollywood for making Black actors wear dresses in the name of comedy, claiming this to be part of a larger agenda to emasculate the Black male identity. How do you contend with mainstream depictions of the Black identity and in what ways has that impacted the way you’ve approached your writing? 

PE:  Well, when I was a kid, and I would look for literature, so often the only books I could find with Black characters were set in the Antebellum South, or the inner city, neither of which were my experience in the world. And so I wasn’t represented in popular culture, as far as I can see, certainly not in movies and television. What is so strange is that even now, just maybe several months ago, staying up late, I noticed that there was an old Abbott and Costello movie about Abbott and Costello in Africa, and they’re showing wide-eyed Black Africans afraid of ghosts and things like that. But it never occurred to anyone that maybe they shouldn’t continue to show that. Likewise, continued airings of other movies with those depictions, and things like The Three Stooges which have those kinds of racist depictions of Westerns, that depict native people in the same light. But in a way those microaggressions become little badges of honor, for we people of color. They’re like little signs at the edge of a minefield that tell us our mines may be necessary. And so the culture figures out that the depictions are wrong and should go away.

BG: Would you say you’ve always been thinking about this as you’ve approached your work?

PE: Well, how can I not? Whether I’m thinking about it or not, it’s a part of my make up. It’s just how I have to address the world and see it all the time. We could be having a very nice day, and we go into an antique mall, and I turn the corner, and there’s a pyramid stack of really offensive Aunt Jemima jugs, made from the syrup bottles and no one sees anything wrong with it. And it’s the lack of a perception of that irony that really is more affecting than the presence of the jars.

BG: You talk about it in one of your other interviews that irony is a huge feature of how you see the world. I’m wondering if you can talk a little bit about that and how you’ve come to have an affinity with it as a tool to address complex issues in fiction.

PE: I think almost all writers of color, all the people who create art while oppressed experience and survive the world because of irony. It’s not unique to me certainly, it’s just how we have to move forward. If we were completely earnest about everything, we would never see tomorrow. Why would we bother?