James Study Guide

Percival Everett was born in Fort Gordon, Georgia, where his father was stationed as a sergeant in the United States Army. His family moved to Columbia, South Carolina when he was young. Everett graduated from the University of Miami with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and earned his master’s degree in fiction from Brown University in 1982. Everett’s literary career is wide-ranging in terms of genre and theme: he has written westerns, mythological retellings, philosophical fiction, thrillers, mysteries, and satire. His most well-known novel, Erasure (2001), is a metafictional work satirizing the publishing industry’s tendency to pigeonhole Black authors. In 2023, the novel was adapted into the film American Fiction, which won Best Adapted Screenplay at the Academy Awards. Other notable works include I Am Not Sidney Poitier (2009)—a novel whose protagonist bears a physical resemblance to actor Sidney Poitier and that explores issues of racial segregation and identity—and The Trees (2021)—a novel about historical and contemporary lynchings. The Trees won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award and was shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize. Everett teaches as a Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Danzy Senna, and family.

From the 15th century until the 19th century, the transatlantic slave trade forcibly imported around 12 million Africans to European colonies, primarily in North and South America. The United States participated in the international slave trade from the country’s conception in 1776 until 1807, when federal law prohibited the importation of more enslaved people to the United States. While many found ways to smuggle Africans into the country despite this law, in the years after 1808, the United States primarily engaged in the domestic slave trade, relocating over one million enslaved people to the Deep South. In the 1850s, political tensions rose between the northern states—who sought to abolish slavery—and the southern states—who relied on slave labor to fuel their economy. The formation of the Underground Railroad—a secret network of routes and houses—provided a way for enslaved people to escape their abusive owners by fleeing to the north. The 1860 election of President Abraham Lincoln brought the conflict to a head, leading seven southern slave states to secede from the Union and found the Confederacy. War broke out in April 1861 and lasted until 1865, claiming the lives of over one million citizens. While the southern states ultimately rejoined the Union, and enslaved people in the Confederacy were gradually emancipated, there is much debate over the causes and motivations of the Civil War. Like Jim, many believe the abolition of slavery was an incidental outcome of the war rather than a primary motivation.

Mark Twain’s 1885 novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, serves as Everett’s source text and is the sequel to The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). As in James (2024), Twain’s novel pays close attention to themes of vernacular language and social satire but is complicated by its extensive use of racial stereotypes and slurs. Everett’s 2001 novel Erasure further investigates themes of language and racial identity, focusing his satirical critique this time on the publishing industry. For readers wishing to delve deeper into Jim’s side of Huck Finn’s narrative, Nancy Rawles’s My Jim (2005) explores the perspective of Jim’s wife, Sadie, as she copes with the devastating loss of her husband. Jean Toomer’s surreal collection of poetry and vignettes, titled Cane (1923), examines the experiences of Black Americans who use code-switching and racial performance to remain safe in white spaces. For those interested in literature which reckons with authors who were both popular and problematic, Mat Johnson’s Pym (2011) examines an obscure novel by Edgar Allan Poe from the perspective of a Black professor who embarks on an epic journey into frigid and racially fraught territory. Lastly, Colson Whitehead’s National Book Award-winning novel The Underground Railroad (2016) follows a Black woman’s harrowing escape from enslavement and examines the lasting ramifications of America’s horrific slave trade, which persist in the present day.