"How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." —The one and only Winnie the Pooh
Rae and I were in the same zip code this month. I love it when that happens! And let me tell you, it doesn’t happen nearly enough. It goes without saying goodbye is always hard, but I don’t need a reminder to know how lucky I am to have a once-in-a-lifetime friend. We needed more time. In the briefest conversation, we chatted about Jim. I guess I should more accurately say James. As in Percival Everett’s James. Man, I feel lucky to have gotten to know him.
For those of you who haven’t heard about Percival Everett’s latest, I’ll borrow from Garrett Biggs’ review, “James is many things: a relentless code-switching satire, a meditation on the constructedness of racial identity, a love letter to the written word, and yes, I suppose, a retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” Enslaved Jim takes center stage. He’s remarkably intelligent. And literate. His compassion is as tall as his task to remain free. I love his dream dialogue with Locke and Voltaire. Jim makes me think. And rethink. As I listened to Everett’s last line, I felt sad to say goodbye to “one of the noblest characters in American literature [who finally] gets a novel worthy of him.”
P.S. I’m ashamed to admit that Percival Everett hasn’t been on my radar. I wish I would have read this piece before seeing American Fiction. Even then, I didn’t put two and two together when I downloaded James. I didn’t realize Everett authored the Oscar winner. Admittedly, this is my first introduction to the award-winning author and Pulitzer Prize finalist. It most certainly won’t be my last.