The United States has long been (or seen as being, up until recent dubious political shenanigans and maneuvering), a glittering and shiny beacon of light for the world. A country of safe refuge for millions of care-worn refugees and optimistic and forward-thinking immigrants. A veritable land of unbridled opportunity for all. The land of milk and honey. 

And yet, there has been, in America’s rollercoaster-like history of mountain-top experiences and deep and gutted valleys, a dark and shameful occurrence. One that many in the ‘land of the free’ would rather not talk about, let alone put the sordid facts ‘out on the table’ for all to examine. 

I am of course talking about the tragic and underhanded (yet largely socially accepted at the time) slave trade that was indisputably woven into the fabric of American life from the time of the colonies until it’s official end in 1865, with the stated endorsement of the 13th amendment in America. This abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States, excepting where punishment for a crime had been adhered to. The 14th and 15th amendments would go on to allow further directives on the slavery and race issues.

These majorly sobering (yet factual) vicissitudes are gut-wrenchingly and authentically laid out for the reader in stellar American author, and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California, Percival Everett’s, exemplary latest novel, James. 

This transformative story is a type of re-imagining of the time-honoured American classic, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. The beguiling twist is that James is told from the point of view of Huckleberry’s (a white boy) dear friend and companion during his escape and advance down the Mississippi River and it’s environs, the young black slave, Jim.

James (along with his wife, Sadie, and young daughter, Lizzie, also slaves) belongs to (aka is the slave of) Miss Watson in the Missouri town of Hannibal in the later part of the 1800s. 

When Jim gets wind of the fact that he is to be sold as a slave to somebody in New Orleans, he takes flight, and Huck along with him. Huck’s catalyst for being on the run being that his alcoholic and abusive father (along with Miss Watson and Judge Thatcher, whom Huck lives with in Hannibal) believes Huck to be dead. Thus it is a chance for him to take off and save himself.

We learn early on the heavy emotional, mental and spiritual price of being a slave. Jim discusses the slaves’ association with the ‘white folk’ with Lizzie and other children one night. The children report what they’ve learnt about being a slave to white people. Observances include, “Don’t make eye contact”, “Never speak first”, “They (white people) enjoy (correcting you) and thinking you’re stupid”. Also that, “the better they (the slave owners) feel, the safer we (the slaves) are”. 

There is also “slaves talk” that the slaves invest in when around the white people. This entails a lot of slang and shortened words. James tells the children “White folks expect us to sound a certain way and it can only help if we don’t disappoint them”. The slaves speak eloquently when they are by themselves.

 Even Huck, so innocent, naive and trusting of James, confides in James that “I forget that you feel things jest like I feel”.

 Jim remembers Judge Thatcher’s (his owner) whipping of him when he was thirteen, because “I made the misstep of speaking to a young white woman who said hello to me. What I said exactly was “Hello.” Judge Thatcher had the reputation of being one of the good masters, but the sting of the leather told me what that meant. The first strike came as a surprise, not because I didn’t know it was coming, but because I could feel the tinge of pleasure attached to it’s delivery. The relish felt through the second blow was no longer surprising, only sadly predictable”.

Coming across the Virginia Minstrels, (a group of white men who are singers and musicians), who put on “blackface” for their performances and make fun of the black people through their songs, seems to be a stroke of good fortune (or is it?) for Jim. Fortuitous that is because the Minstrels ‘buy’ Jim from new travelling companions, Wiley and Easter. Jim becomes their tenor, and subsequently is given blackface to make it look as if he is a white man who has black make-up on. 

James reflects “I had stood and listened to this transaction and never once was I asked for either opinion or desire. I was the horse that I was, just an animal, just property, nothing but a thing, but apparently I was a horse, a thing, that could sing”.

Jim’s ‘adventures’ (more accurately they are terror-filled days and nights because the cruel and harsh reality is that Jim will be whipped and killed by Judge Thatcher and other white men who are out looking for him when found) are bravely and intelligently executed. Once Jim can get himself some money, he will be able to organise the buying of Sadie and Lizzie and maybe they can all become free?

The well-thought-out-plan is for Jim and his family to live in a state that doesn’t have slavery. Maybe even go to the slave-free Canada?

As Jim is heartbreakingly told by someone in a dream “You’re mortgaged,  Jim. Like a farm, like a house. Really, the bank owns you. Miss Watson gets a bond, a piece of paper that say what you’re worth, and you just keep living in this condition. Living. You’re party of the bank’s assets and so people all over the world are making money off your scarred black hide……Nobody wants you free”.

An eclectic assortment of colourful characters are liberally scattered throughout the book. Some noble, others abhorrent. The writing is so real that I could ‘see’ Jim, all the people he encounters in his bid for freedom, and the impressively gushing Mississippi River and the forested surrounds.

Jim certainly is someone who won’t accept his ‘lot’ in this life. And when there are rumblings of a Civil War, perhaps Jim’s fortunes will change?

Percival has written a novel that overflows with intelligence, wisdom, insight into the human psyche and condition (both the good and evil) and noble defiance.

Themes of human degradation, humiliation, human power-trips, sadism, bullying, bravery and wanting (and deserving) a better life are all examined.

Bravo Percival! You have written a novel that transported me to a time and place I knew little about. You had me being aghast, heartbroken and definitely angry about humankind’s terrible cruelty and abuse of others. Alarmingly, we see that at this time in history, slavery was the accepted ‘norm’ and white people really did ‘see’ their slaves as inferior beings. Slaves were treated as worse than an animal. The trauma, fear (a slave could be whipped and killed at whim by an owner) and anger are palpable in this book.

Sadly, modern America is still grappling with it’s murky history of slavery. For instance, there are still pervading pockets of racism in this country where so many have come to with such high hopes and optimism.

James should be read by everyone on the planet, I believe. Certainly it should be on the curriculum in schools worldwide.

Australia, where I live, has it’s own tragic history regarding the massacres and mistreatment of it’s First Nations people. (The slaves in America were originally brought across from Africa, but there is a commonality in that Aboriginals were treated as if they were ‘nothing’, including not being paid wages when ’employed’ by white people).

Hopefully the reading of James will ignite discussions over the awful treatment of black people in America’s history. And such talks will hopefully further open the world’s collective eyes to the act of racism in our countries and societies around the world.

James is a great book. 5 stars from me._