James by Percival Everett

James by Percival Everett is an interesting novel that reimagines the Huck Finn story told through a first-person account by Jim, Huck's family slave. Everett wrote the book Erasure, the basis of the film American Fiction, and with this effort, he provides a very unique story construct.

Jim had to play a part, one expected based on the color of his skin, even with people like Huck that were kind to him, but still casually racist. There were expectations of slaves and their supposed mental shortcomings so Jim used incorrect grammar, and taught his kids to do the same. He would offer up ideas to white people, not as suggestions, but ones they would latch on to and say as if they their own. It was noted in the book about whites that they better they feel, the safer it is for black people. Jim also concealed that  he knew how to read, to the point of making a joke of what would he do with a book? 

Identity is a theme, with fairly early Jim writing with a stolen pencil "I am called Jim, I have yet to choose a name," and "with my pencil, I wrote myself into being." 

The book is funny at times and gutting at times. There's such a matter of fact telling of how an entire race was treated as less than people. It's a super creative idea and effort from Everett, and the ending of the book an excellent one, with the main character claiming his identity as James, not Jim the slave.