Pulitzer Book Club Inclusion Guide
"James"
by Percival Everett
INCLUSION MILESTONES
2025
• Protests against divisive Trump policies gain nationwide traction.
• Costco elevates commitment to DEI; revenues, loyalty increase.
• 20 state attorneys general sue to protect DEI.
AUTHOR INSPIRATIONS
Everett, USC Distinguished Professor of
English, read Huck Finn 15x in a row
before writing James. As a boy, Everett attended segregated SC schools; his college major was philosophy. Trout fisherman; plays guitar, mandolin. Sense of humor/ irony fueled by his father, Mark Twain, Groucho Marx, and Bullwinkle J. Moose.
GET THE BOOK
Featured Reader Wanted!
Featured Reader
– Share your key take-away about inclusion in this book in a sentence or two.
– Write a paragraph or two (up to 250 words) to describe your thoughts on exclusion/inclusion in the book, why you related or did not connect with the book, and why you think reading, inclusion and dialog about inclusion matter.
– Identify the name and website address of a cause you support with an inclusive mission.
Twain’s Adventures, but POV’s sophisticated,
witty, family man/runaway slave.
James, a black man, sings in blackface in a
minstrel show.
Enslaved people speak in coded dialect in front
of white enslavers.
Fast Read: 320 pages, 8 hours
Don’t make assumptions about what people are thinking or actually saying.
Lens is articulate, insightful, witty, well-read man who is a runaway slave.
Generational trauma of slavery, pervasive fear of eminent violence, expectation of disrespect, distrust, and unfair treatment directed at enslaved people.
Insight into how oppressed view, communicate with, and are treated and evaluated by oppressors.
Challenges faced by people who could “pass” as white.
Examination of indoctrination of children into racism.
Violence toward the enslaved and retribution toward enemies/oppressors.
Separation from family members.
White privilege.
Dog fish/wrestle a 50-pound catfish then cook it on
an open fire ignited via a piece of glass. Forage
berries. Steal biscuits or attempt to faithfully
recreate Sadie’s cornbread recipe.
"The only ones who suffer when they are made to
feel inferior is us. Perhaps I should say ‘when
they don’t feel superior.’”
Stealthily float by night on a raft or canoe, stash
your ride, then create a nearby hideout with zero
amenities like a runaway. Beware of cottonmouths.
Privileged have option for riverboat cruise or posh
spot with water view where a potentially oppressed person serves you.
"Contrast James with Twain’s Jim from Huck Finn.
Talk about race relations when Huck Finn was published
in 1884 and racism in America today.
Describe a memory/reaction you had to racism in a novel you read when you were younger and how you think literature can affect race relations.
Was Twain a racist or exposing racism?
Compare what Tom Sawyer and James read and how
reading reflected the way they treated others.
What did James teach children and why?
Share thoughts on how/why vocabulary, diction,
accents drive attitudes and prejudice.
Describe your emotional journey through the novel.
How did humor and satire shape your reaction to James?
Discuss why Huck could have adventures as James
struggled for his freedom and life.
How/why did the James/Huck relationship evolve?
Talk about the minstrel show and lyrics in the novel. Sing one of the songs from the novel then talk about how doing that made you feel.
What are major philosophical dilemmas were presented? Which exist in your world?
Compare the various oppressors in James.
What did you learn about your own bias while reading James?"
Go to Twain's boyhood hometown, Hannibal,
Missouri. Visit Jim’s Journey: The Huck Finn
Freedom Center, Hannibal's first African American
history museum. Ride Mark Twain Riverboat; hear
Twain tales while you see the Mississippi. Check out Mark Twain’s boyhood home and museum. Search for remaining treasure in Mark Twain Cave Complex.
Alternatively, hide out in Mark Twain National Forest in the Ozarks or Mark Twain Birthplace State Historic Site in the Salt River Hills.
If you’re in upstate NY, go to Emira College (Twain’s wife was an alumna); visit Center for Mark Twain Studies which includes Mark Twain Archives, Quarry Farm and Mark Twain’s Study where he wrote The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
Universal/Spielberg likely to do an adaption of James.
American Fiction, the adaptation of Everett’s Erasure, won the 2024 Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Alexandre Westphal & Percival Everett created the 2023 documentary Through the Writer’s Mirror.
Norman Lear abandoned his attempted to adapt Everett’s début novel, Suder, into a feature film.
Everett is the author of two dozen novels, several collections of short stories and poetry, and a book for children. His novels include Sonnets for a Missing Key (2024), Telephone (2023), Dr. No (2022), Percival Everett by Virgil Russell (2013), Two Stories (2019) So Much Blue (2017), Half an Inch of Water (2015), Assumption (2011), I Am Not Sidney Poitier (2009), American Desert (2009), The Water Cure (2007), Wounded (2005), Damned If I Do (2004), Erasure (2001), Trees (2001), Glyph (1999), Frenzy (1997), The Body of Martin Aguilera (1997), Watershed (1996), God’s Country (1994), For Her Dark Skin (1990), Cutting Lisa (1986), Walk Me to the Distance (1985), and Suder (1983).