James by Percival Everett | book review

The Booker-shortlisted retelling of Huckleberry Finn—as brilliant as promised, with the searing whiplash of voice and reality

James is incredible. When everyone and their uncle recommended it last year (along with Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar, a substantially different book that seemed to be on all the same lists), I was intrigued but also wondered if its popularity was just snowballing, a trendy book amongst book reviewers especially on Substack.

It is far from just a buzzy popular …