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Starred review from December 4, 2023
As in his classic novel Erasure, Everett portrays in this ingenious retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn a Black man who’s mastered the art of minstrelsy to get what he needs from gullible white people. Many of the same things happen as they do in Twain’s original: Jim escapes from enslavement on a Missouri farm and joins up with Huck, a white boy who’s faked his own death. Huck is fleeing from his abusive father, while Jim is hoping to find a way to free his wife and daughter. The main difference is in the telling. Jim narrates, not Huck, and in so doing he reveals how he employs “slave” talk (“correct incorrect grammar”) when white people can hear, to make them feel safe and superior. Everett also pares down the prose and adds humor in place of sentimentality. When Huck and Jim come upon a band of slave hunters, Huck claims Jim, who’s covered by a tarp, is a white man infected with smallpox (“We keep thinkin’ he gone die, then he just don’t”). Clever additions to the narrative include a tense episode in which Jim is fraudulently sold by a slaver to “Dixie” composer Daniel Decatur Emmett, who has Jim perform in blackface with his singing troupe. Jim’s wrenching odyssey concludes with remarkable revelations, violent showdowns, and insightful meditations on literature and philosophy. Everett has outdone himself.
February 1, 2025
Everett's (The Trees) reimagining of Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is expertly narrated by Dominic Hoffman, who offers a layered portrait of James's (as opposed to Twain's "Jim's") integrity and dimensionality. James's escape from the Missouri farm where he was enslaved is as much a journey away from a place as it is a path toward self-actualization. His growth is enacted through philosophical interludes and fleeting companionship, forging space for a fully fleshed out characterization that could not exist within the confines of Twain's work. James meets many friends and foes as he searches for a space and time where he and his loved ones are not constantly subjugated, beaten, and murdered. Hoffman's excellent voicework lays bare James's facility at code-switching, illuminating the instant fear forced upon Black people when in the presence of any white person, regardless of their class status. Everett's writing and Hoffman's narration combine to interrogate and activate James's quest for freedom, shifting him from Twain's sidelines into a heroic spotlight. VERDICT Winding, intriguing, and acute, this novel is less a retelling than a reinvestigation of Twain's classic, made possible by Everett's incisive prose and Hoffman's absorbing narration.--Kailyn Slater
Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
February 1, 2025
Everett reimagines Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, offering a resonant portrait of James--whom listeners will recognize as Twain's "Jim"--and revealing the harrowing reality of enslavement. Narrator Dominic Hoffman embodies James with exquisite skill, piercingly communicating the depths of his integrity and solemn insight. Hoffman nimbly articulates James's facility at code-switching, underlaid with the ever-present fear of attracting notice from his unpredictable and casually cruel enslavers.
Copyright 2025 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
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