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Cover of James by Percival Everett

Literary Fiction · Free kit

James

Percival Everett

Enslaved in Hannibal, Missouri, the man the town calls Jim overhears that Miss Watson means to sell him downriver — and decides he will not be separated from his wife, Sadie, and his daughter, Lizzie. Percival Everett's 2024 retelling of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn follows that flight in Jim's own voice: a secretly literate, bitterly funny narrator who performs the dialect white people expect, then drops it the second they are gone. Raft, flood, con men, and a minstrel troupe carry him down the Mississippi as rumor of war gathers. What he wants is a pencil, a name of his own, and a way back to the people he loves. Winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

“I am a sign. I am your future. I am James.”

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Reading schedule · Book vote

James Icebreakers

Answer in under 30 seconds. These connect to the book’s themes without spoiling the story.

  1. Personality Reveal

    1. In a room where being underestimated keeps you safer, do you perform smaller — or refuse to shrink?

  2. Personality Reveal

    2. Are you the person who changes voice depending on the room, or the person who uses the same voice everywhere?

  3. Personality Reveal

    3. When you write something down, does it feel more true than when you say it out loud?

  4. Funny & Light

    4. What is the most unconvincing voice or accent you have ever tried in public?

  5. Funny & Light

    5. Have you ever pretended not to know something you definitely knew, just to keep the peace?

  6. Funny & Light

    6. What is your most chaotic "I am definitely not eavesdropping" pose?

  7. Would You Rather

    7. Would you rather be fluent in every room's expected voice, or refuse to change yours even when it costs you?

  8. Would You Rather

    8. Would you rather travel only by river for a year, or never see a river again?

  9. Would You Rather

    9. Would you rather write the story of your life in secret, or never write it and let other people tell it?

  10. Hot Take

    10. Hot take: being likable is a survival skill, not a personality. Agree or disagree?

  11. Hot Take

    11. Hot take: if you have to perform stupidity to stay safe, the room is the problem — not the performance. Agree or disagree?

  12. Hot Take

    12. Finish this sentence: People hear the voice they expect because ______.

  13. Personal Connection

    13. When have you used a different voice than the one you think in?

  14. Personal Connection

    14. Who in your life would you travel a dangerous distance to get back to?

  15. Personal Connection

    15. What name — legal, nickname, or private — feels most like you?