CL Pauwels at Large

I generally avoid hype of any kind. I can count on one hand with fingers left over the number of Oscar-winning movies I’ve seen/actually liked. The same for book prizes – Pulitzer, Booker, Pushcart…their choices usually leave me cold. Occasionally, I’ll pick up a genre winner – Edgar or Agatha in particular. But I have a love/hate relationship with “literature” anyway, and if it’s lauded by critics too – hard pass!

Don’t judge! Lots of books, too little time. I have to draw the line somewhere. And I will never understand the attraction of “heart-wrenching” fiction that leaves readers in a puddle of tears. The world offers enough gut-punching tragedy; I don’t need more in my leisure time.

All that being said, the pull of Pulitzer-finalist and 2024 Kirkus Prize and National Book Award for Fiction winner James by Percival Everett was too much to resist. I’m not sure I ever read Huck Finn all the way through to begin with, but an interview with Everett that I read somewhere caught my attention. I love the re-imaging of Wicked, and it sounded like Everett had done the same for Huck’s enslaved companion, Jim.

Hoo-boy – James was enough to make me rethink my reticence about those award winners! I even moved on to the 2024 Booker Prize winner Orbital more recently (WIR comments on that title next time).

James is enthralling and thought-provoking and infuriating and…yes, I’m gushing – something I rarely do. Just the first-person voice Everett gives to the protagonist James was enough for me to keep reading: “Waiting is a big part of a slave’s life, waiting and waiting to wait some more. Waiting for demands. Waiting for food. Waiting for the ends of days.” Everett creates a version of linguistic code-switching for James and his fellow enslaved blacks that rings so true it’s not hard to believe it could have been – all while slyly skewering white folks in the process.

Yes, I’ll add to the hype and encourage you not to wait to pick up James if you haven’t done so already.