On a quiet afternoon in late August, 2025, I sat overlooking the bay in Sullivan, Maine, watching a few small boats drift across the water. Earlier that day, I had wandered into Sherman’s Bookstore in nearby Bar Harbor and picked up James by Percival Everett. It felt like the perfect place to begin a new book.

James is a reimagining of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, told from the perspective of Jim, the enslaved man who travels with Huck down the Mississippi River. In Twain’s novel, Jim appears mostly as a gentle and loyal companion, seen through the eyes of a boy.

Everett begins with that familiar image but quickly deepens it. In this retelling, Jim becomes a far more complex figure, observant and constantly aware of the dangers around him. What once felt like a boy’s adventure becomes heavier. A story about survival and freedom.

What struck me most is how Everett keeps the bones of Twain’s story while quietly shifting its center. The gentle Jim, many readers remember, is still present, but in this version, he is no longer a side character. He becomes the mind and moral center of the story. Everett gives him his full humanity, his intelligence, and his determination to survive. At times that humanity is uncomfortable. The choices Jim makes near the end of the novel did not sit easily with me, yet they also made the story feel more honest. By the end, the familiar tale feels entirely different because we are finally seeing it through Jim’s own eyes rather than through the limited understanding of a boy.

Buy James on Bookshop.org. I love supporting indie bookstores!