Percival Everett and the Reinvention of Mark Twain’s Jim

About this episode

<p>In a new novel, Percival Everett offers a radically different perspective on the classic story “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Huckleberry-Finn-Mark-Twain/dp/0486280616">The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</a>.”  Everett tells the story of Jim, who is escaping slavery; he calls his book “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/James-Novel-Percival-Everett/dp/0385550367">James</a>.”  “My Jim—he’s not simple,” Everett tells <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/julian-lucas">Julian Lucas</a>. “The Jim that’s represented in Huck Finn is simple.”  Everett, whose 2001 novel “<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Erasure-Novel-Percival-Everett/dp/1555975992">Erasure</a>” was adapted as the Oscar-winning film “American Fiction,” restores Jim’s inner life as a father surviving enslavement, and forced to play along with the pranks of two white boys.  But like other Black authors, including Toni Morrison and Ishmael Reed, Everett considers Twain’s original a central American text grappling with slavery.  “I imagine myself in a conversation with Twain doing this. And one of the things I think he and I would both agree on is that he doesn’t write Jim’s story because he’s not capable of writing Jim’s story—any more than I’m capable of writing Huck’s story.” </p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>