“James”

Full disclosure:  Due to my very mediocre public education in Plattsburgh, NY, I never read “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”.  “James” by Percival Everett retells that classic story from Jim’s perspective, an enslaved black man. Despite my ignorance, I was absolutely immersed in this beautiful and difficult story. James is a loving, loyal, desperate man living two lives - one as a slave who has to sound and act dumb in order to survive and one as an intelligent and sensitive human who wants to be free.  His adventures on the Mississippi River on the iconic raft with Huck has many twists and turns and big surprises as well. But it isn’t fun and games - the crux of the tale is about maintaining dignity and making moral decisions that sometimes preserve life and sometimes do not.