IN FEBRUARY 2023, the news broke that Percival Everett would be publishing his 24th novel, James, a retelling of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from enslaved Jim’s perspective, for an advance of more than $500,000. Some Everett devotees (myself included) wondered if, after years of inventive, philosophical, and absurdist work displaying a dizzying range—mute baby geniuses, nutty heist plots, post-westerns, and metacommentaries on race and publishing—he was finally selling out. After all, though Everett has increased in stature recently—he’s been a Pulitzer and Booker finalist for 2020’s Telephone and 2021’s The Trees, respectively, and his breakout, 2001’s Erasure, an incendiary publishing-world satire, was recently adapted into the comparatively defanged Oscar-winning film American Fiction— his books have not sold in great numbers. His subject matter can be eclectic. The cast of characters…
