Book Review: James

Religion & Enlightenment in Competition

Like many people, I recently discovered the author Percival Everett through his book Erasure, which was adapted into the film American Fiction. Coincidentally, the movie was released around the same time as Everett’s latest novel, James, making it the perfect explore his ideas. In both the book and the movie, Everett raises old questions in new ways. He wrestles with race, racial stereotypes, and how we might emerge better off. I loved both.

NOTE: I cannot recommend this book highly enough. What follows are the questions I had, but in no way takes away from this fantastic piece of literature.

James really got me thinking. It challenged and encouraged me in ways that made me reflect on questions I have about redemption and modern society. What does it mean to be redeemed? When we strip away the Sunday school answers, what is our true hope for human destiny?

Enlightenment in a Darkened World

James is a retelling of Mark Twain’s classic Huckleberry Finn, told from the perspective of Huck’s companion, Jim—the runaway slave. The book is funny, beautiful, and provocative. Like any story set against the backdrop of slavery, it forces the reader to confront one of America’s greatest sins. While many books about slavery are bleak and filled with despair, James is different—it’s more subtle.

Everett invites us to reconsider slavery from a modern perspective by making one of the slaves a contemporary figure. James is, in essence, a 21st-century secular humanist inhabiting the body of the slave Jim. He’s one of us—he could be any of us. He can read and write. He quotes Locke and Rousseau while strategizing like Hannibal. Jim is his alter ego, performing the act of the stereotypical “dumb” slave to placate the white man and ensure his own safety. The story is comedic, and we, as readers, are in on the joke. It’s amusing to know that the man who speaks pidgin English around white people is actually the smartest person on the Mississippi River. But the tragedy lies in the fact that this was most certainly the case for many black people in that era.

The idea of owning another person is an abomination. But Everett reminds us that those who were owned were just like us—people with potential. James embodies this absurdity, forcing us to face the reality that the only thing standing between a white man and his black slave was opportunity and education. Many black men and women who could have been scientists or doctors in our day were instead forced to pick cotton and sing slave songs. Everett is almost screaming his message in the book, but he delivers that message almost as a whisper—for that reason alone this book is a masterpiece.

James and the Question of Faith

Despite the brilliance of the book, one aspect left me unsettled: Everett’s portrayal of faith. I’m usually unphased by critiques of religion in literature, but this was different. It wasn’t a direct assault; it was subtle, much like the rest of the novel.

Everett depicts slaves who pretended to be what their slavers wanted them to be—dumb and Christian. Faith becomes part of the ruse. While this is historically accurate, as slaves had to act subservient to protect themselves, what struck me wasn’t just the pretense of Christianity—it was the portrayal of faith itself. Everett seems to suggest that these slaves knew better than to believe in God. Faith, in his depiction, was the invention of the ignorant white man. He presents the slaves as secular humanists, too enlightened for belief.

Given Everett’s project, this portrayal makes sense. You can’t write a story about a closeted secular humanist in a slave’s body and then expect that character to have a thirst for God.

However, this view seemed to undermine the faith of many black believers. The black church, after all, rose from the ashes of slavery and flourished despite the odds. It has long been a powerful force, maintaining its distinct voice and resisting the tide of secularism. It’s a church that believes, while the white church often compromises. In contrast, Everett's book feels like a ridicule not just of white Christianity, but of black Christianity too—churches that were born out of suffering and perseverance.

Everett had every right to critique the white church for its complicity in racial injustice, but he chose to mock Christians in general. In doing so, he seems to look down on the very people whose faith helped them endure unimaginable suffering. Everett’s portrayal of secular humanism as enlightenment feels elitist, as if he is elevating intellectualism over the very people he seeks to honor.

Enlightenment and Me

This leads me to reflect on my own attitudes. If I’m honest, I often place more value on “enlightened” culture than simple faith in God. I tend to assume that artists and intellectuals are more spiritually aware than those without such education. I find myself often thinking that thinkers like Locke and Rousseau offer a more valuable enlightenment than that of the Spirit of God.

Perhaps Everett’s hierarchy resonates with me precisely because he’s forcing us to question this. In a story like James, faith is always under fire because faith is perceived as naïve. Faith doesn’t know—it believes. Faith doesn’t invent—it receives. Faith isn’t enlightened—it searches. If Everett had depicted James as anything other than a secular humanist, we might have questioned whether he was still under the white man’s thumb.

Our desire for freedom often stems from the impulse to break away from influence and weakness. We want to command our own ships, shed convention, and laugh at those we perceive as less enlightened. This brings me back to the question of redemption. What does it mean to transcend? Is it to move deeper into faith, or to ascend the heights of the intellectual and cultural elite? Is my hope for human destiny rooted in the “enlightenment” of the world, or in the eternal hope that comes from knowing Christ?

In the end, how would I envision a liberated James? I hope faith would still be central. James would still need to be the smartest man on the Mississippi, of course, but I’d to imagine that he could still look up at the stars and encounter the mysteries of God.

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