Urban Life Experience Book Discussion Series

Book Discussion of James by Percival Everett      Fourteen of us met on Saturday Sept. 6 th to discuss James by Percival Everett. This 2024 novel is a retelling of The Adventures of Huck leberry Finn by Mark Twain (Samuel Clemmons), but instead of coming from the perspective of Huck Finn, this novel is written from the perspective of James. James is literate, clever, intelligent, caring, and loves his wife and daughter. What’s more, is that he has a strong sense of self. He’s confident in his personhood and has educated himself by reading the books in Judge Thatcher’s library.    Where The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and James describe the misadventures of Huck and Jim/James rowing down the Mississippi River and foraging and fishing for food, James is not a chronicle of boyhood adventures. The character James, in this book, is not boyish at all.    Robin started us off by saying that a friend of hers didn’t like this novel. It seems t...