James

Mark Twain famously began Huckleberry Finn by declaring, "Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot." You get the feeling Twain and Percival Everett might have gotten along fine. Everett has made a career out of upending narratives and skewering literary expectations; by his standards, Everett plays this one, a retelling of Twain's classic from Jim's perspective, pretty straight; plenty is upended (Jim reads Voltaire on the sly, and joins a real-life minstrel troupe), but there might be a moral or two in it, and some dead-serious philosophy-in-action. It'll make you want to read Huck Finn again; it's so good it'll also make you want to read James again.