Ep 706 - James, by Percival Everett

Summary

Overdue Podcast: Episode 706 - "James" by Percival Everett

Released on June 9, 2025

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Introduction

Welcome to Overdue, the Headgum podcast where hosts Andrew and Craig dive into the books they've been meaning to read. Each week, they explore a new title from their backlog—ranging from classic literature to obscure plays and quirky children's books. In Episode 706, titled "James," Andrew and Craig unpack Percival Everett’s modern reimagining of Mark Twain’s seminal novel, "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn."

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Overview of "James" by Percival Everett

In this episode, Andrew and Craig delve into "James", Percival Everett’s Pulitzer Prize-winning retelling of "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn". Unlike the original, which is narrated from Huck's perspective, Everett shifts the focus to Jim—the runaway slave—and offers a profound exploration of his inner world, experiences, and evolving sense of agency.

Craig begins by outlining the book’s structure:
"The book is divided into three parts and part one is basically mostly Huckleberry Finn through the eyes of Jim..." (03:00).

Andrew adds, highlighting Jim’s personal journey:
"The book revolves around him in a way, but not in a way that, like, puts us into his head ever. And that's what the project of James is, is to put us in his head..." (03:00).

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Percival Everett’s Literary Approach

Percival Everett, born in 1956 in Georgia and a distinguished professor at the University of Southern California, is renowned for his innovative approach to literature. Throughout his career, Everett has consistently recontextualized classic works from marginalized perspectives, providing fresh insights and challenging traditional narratives.

Andrew notes,
"He has been reimagining various seminal and very white works of literature and bringing the experience of the black characters to the forefront." (05:31).

This approach is not new to Everett. Craig references their prior discussions on Everett’s "Wind Done Gone", another retelling that centers Black protagonists, emphasizing Everett's commitment to giving voice to characters historically sidelined in classic literature.

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Themes and Analysis of "James"

1. Language and Code-Switching

A significant theme in "James" is the use of language as a survival tool. Everett meticulously portrays how enslaved individuals employ code-switching to navigate oppressive environments.

Craig discusses a pivotal scene showcasing this:
"The book begins with a long expository passage about how enslaved people use coded language to communicate safely..." (35:23).

Jim's strategic use of language is a testament to his resilience and intelligence, highlighting the psychological toll of slavery and the necessity for such adaptations.

2. Agency and Identity

Everett's Jim undergoes a profound transformation, moving from a figure of subjugation to one of agency and self-determination. This evolution is central to the narrative, as Jim grapples with his identity and seeks to reclaim his autonomy.

Craig observes,
"Jim is experiencing an anger inside him and figuring out what to do with it." (10:26).

This internal struggle is mirrored in his interactions with other characters, particularly with Huck, emphasizing the personal costs of systemic oppression.

3. Violence and Retaliation

The narrative doesn't shy away from the brutality of slavery. Jim's journey is punctuated by moments of violence, both inflicted upon him and wrestled with internally as he contemplates retaliation.

Andrew reflects,
"Jim rebels against the injustices he faces, but he understands the consequences of violence in perpetuating the cycle of oppression." (72:16).

This nuanced portrayal challenges simplistic notions of resistance, presenting a character deeply conflicted by his circumstances.

4. Structural Playfulness

Everett employs a complex narrative structure, reminiscent of modern comedic sketches, to deliver profound commentary. The book's structural intricacies invite readers to engage deeply, decoding meanings beneath the surface.

Craig likens this to,
"a very thoughtful considered Key and Peele sketch—humorous yet layered with deeper insights." (40:15).

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Plot Details

Part One: Jim’s Perspective on Huck Finn

The first section largely mirrors the original story but shifts the lens to Jim. This reframing allows Everett to explore Jim’s thoughts and feelings, providing a richer, more personal account of their journey down the Mississippi River.

Part Two: Separation and Introduction of Norman

As Jim and Huck become separated, Everett introduces Norman, another runaway slave capable of passing as white. This character adds complexity to the narrative, highlighting the varied experiences and strategies of enslaved individuals.
"With Norman, they can appear more openly in white society, contrasting the constant need for concealment seen with Jim and Huck." (57:03).

Part Three: Jim’s Quest for Freedom

In the final part, Jim embarks on a quest to reunite with his family, encountering numerous challenges that test his resolve and agency. This section culminates in a climactic confrontation where Jim, driven by anger and a desire for justice, takes decisive action against a cruel plantation owner.

Craig narrates the intense final scenes:
"Jim pulls back the hammer on his pistol... he cocked his weapon... the shot I fired rang through that valley like a cannon blast." (80:45).

This act signifies Jim’s transformation from a passive figure to one actively shaping his destiny.

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Reception and Pulitzer Prize

"James" received critical acclaim, culminating in winning the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in June 2025. The hosts discuss the award's significance and the process leading to Everett’s triumph.

Andrew explains the selection process:
"The jury put forward three finalists but didn’t reach a majority, so they selected 'James' as an alternative option." (24:22).

Craig adds, emphasizing the book’s impact:
"Dwight Garner from The New York Times praised it as 'a tangled and subversive homage,' suggesting it should be read alongside Twain’s original." (82:14).

The Pulitzer victory underscores Everett’s successful reimagining and the book’s resonance within contemporary literary discourse.

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Notable Quotes

Throughout their discussion, Andrew and Craig highlight several impactful quotes from both the book and critical reviews:

1. From the New York Times Review by Dwight Garner:
   “Heaven for the climate. Hell for my long awaited lunch with Mark Twain.” (83:38)

2. In-House Joke Reflecting Jim’s Complexity:
   "I always tell the truth, but also I always lie." (17:26)

3. Jim’s Assertion of Identity:
   “I will just say he did pretty much take Tom Sawyer out of it.” (10:41)

These quotes encapsulate the book’s thematic depth and Everett’s stylistic prowess.

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Conclusion

Andrew and Craig conclude their discussion by lauding "James" as an accessible entry point into Percival Everett’s body of work. They appreciate how Everett marries structural innovation with profound thematic exploration, making complex subjects like slavery and racial identity both engaging and thought-provoking.

Craig remarks,
"But then you do a bunch of other interesting stuff and you're, like, a good writer and you're doing fun things with, like, structure and narrative. Yeah, like, I'm here for this." (81:50).

Andrew echoes this sentiment, highlighting the book’s blend of homage and originality:
"It has all the hallmarks of an Everett novel, but the humanity is like turned up." (84:06).

For listeners seeking a compelling mix of classic reinterpretation and modern literary craft, "James" stands out as a must-read, as endorsed by the enthusiastic discourse between Andrew and Craig.

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Connect with Overdue

For more insights into "James" and other books, visit OverduePodcast.com. Join Andrew and Craig on their literary journey, stay updated on future episodes, and engage with a community of fellow book lovers.

Transcript

[Craig]

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[Andrew]

While Andrew and Craig believe the joy of discovery is crucial to enjoying any well told tale, they will not shy.

[Craig]

Away from spoiling specific story beats when necessary.

[Andrew]

Plus, these are books you should have read by now. Hey everybody. Welcome to Overdue. It's a podcast about the books you've been meaning to read. My name is Craig. My name is Andrew and this is our podcast. It's ours. You can't have it.

[Craig]

It's ours.

[Andrew]

Don't take it.

[Craig]

You can, you can borrow it, but don't touch it. You have to give it back to us.

[Andrew]

My son is doing a lot of. This is. I put this here. Don't touch it lately.

[Craig]

Well, what do you do to his stuff when you touch it? Are you messing it up?

[Andrew]

The thing is, he'll do this to stuff that's not his. He'll do like, he'll move a hamper across the room and go, I put this here. Don't touch it.

[Craig]

You're like, well, well, I mean, is it his room though? Simon's room?

[Andrew]

Yeah, but he's putting it in front of the door and now no one can leave.

[Craig]

Maybe that's what he wants. Maybe you just need to let him. You just need to let him have his way in his own room, in his own space.

[Andrew]

Need to give him everything he wants.

[Craig]

In his own little rocket ship bed.

[Andrew]

Job is to give him what he needs.

[Craig]

Why can't he just have this one little patch of ground that's his, you know, that's all we, that's all any of us want. Listen, all I want some kind of order on our little corner of the universe.

[Andrew]

I want is for him to be in the rocket ship bed. And he insists on not being in the rocket ship bed when it is time for him to sleep.

[Craig]

Yeah, that's tough.

[Andrew]

So if I don't, I won't touch the hamper. It's fine. But get into bed so I can make a podcast. But let's go.

[Craig]

Maybe if the bed were easier to move, he would be more interested in it. What if, what if he had to be in the bed but it didn't matter where the bed was?

[Andrew]

I haven't thought about that. I haven't tried moving the bed. Interesting. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. I'll ponder this.

[Craig]

That's me. I'm the ideas man.

[Andrew]

You are the ideas man. I'm the.

[Craig]

Every week on our podcast. Every week on our podcast, one of us reads a book. Obviously you've, you've divined this by now, but one of us reads a book that we've never read before and tells the other person about it. And everybody gets to learn and laugh and love and live for another hour.

[Andrew]

Uh huh.

[Craig]

And that's how it goes. This week I read James by Percival Everett, a retelling of the adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain.

[Andrew]

This episode will be a retelling of episode 477.

[Craig]

Yeah. In which slightly different stuff will happen in it.

[Andrew]

Yeah. So I think you also gave a similar. And we'll learn and we'll laugh and we'll love intro in that episode.

[Craig]

It's possible we're always learning. We've been for years, since 2012 or 13, we've been learning and laughing and loving and growing and reading.

[Andrew]

This is a book that has been out for what Like a year now. Was it 2024?

[Craig]

Relatively recent. Yeah.

[Andrew]

Recently won the Pulitzer Prize. We'll talk about that in just a second. For fiction. Didn't win for anything else.

[Craig]

Love talking about Pulitzers on the show lately.

[Andrew]

It's been a huge run, actually. They've been in the.

[Craig]

But again, it's just an author who's won a single. A lonely Pulitzer. Once again, one lonely Pulitzer.

[Andrew]

We can't all be. We can't all pull a Tarkington.

[Craig]

We can't all be Booth Tarkington. It's true. And this is part of a. I don't. The only book I could think of in our catalog that definitely does it is the Wind Done. Gone. But I feel like we've done others. Like a part of a. I don't know if you call it a literary movement or like a sub genre, but like, black authors taking a. Like, seminal and very white work of literature and recontextualizing it and bringing the experience of the black characters to the forefront. And some, you know, sometimes they're following the events of the old work. Exactly. And sometimes they're. They're sort of mixing it up a little bit to make it their own. But it's definitely not the only book that we've read that's. That's played in this sort of space.

[Andrew]

No. And we've also read other historical novels that are retellings that aren't just. That aren't this particular version of it. Right. You read Wide Sargasso Sea, which was like that retelling of Jane Eyre that had, like, a post colonial bent to it. This is a. I think of this because one of the closing laudatory sentiments from the New York Times review of James was that, like, two writers in a hundred walk away from a literary reimagining unscathed. Like two out of every hundred get to get a good one out there.

[Craig]

Who was the other person that they were thinking, I don't know, said two out of 100. Why can we not. Why can we not reduce these fractions? Can we not just do one out of 50?

[Andrew]

I think it's supposed to let you know the scale that like it more than one can do it, but not many.

[Craig]

Sure. You know, 20 out of every 1,000 writers.

[Andrew]

Well, but when you put it that way, it sounds weird.

[Craig]

I know. That's what I'm saying.

[Andrew]

Maybe. Maybe they did write it that way. And a very good editor was like, let's go two out of two out of 100, please.

[Craig]

A good editor or a bad Mathematician.

[Andrew]

A few sentiments from our Huck Finn episode. First, just to refresh everyone, Huck Finn, seminal novel by Mark Twain. Ernest Hemingway called it the only good one in American literature. Except the ending was bad. Andrew agreed. Andrew.

[Craig]

The more we read American literature, the more I think he might be right about. Yeah, right about.

[Andrew]

Andrew doesn't like Tom Sawyer. I don't know how you feel about the Rush song, Tom Sawyer.

[Craig]

I have no opinion.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

It's pretty rushes in general.

[Andrew]

Rush is a blind spot.

[Craig]

A bit. A bit much for me.

[Andrew]

Oh, a bit much.

[Craig]

A bit much.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

They're, you know, really wailing on those drums, bud.

[Andrew]

That was this whole deal. In that episode, we talked a lot about the 2011 reprint of Huck Finn that declined to use the N word and instead called Jim Slave Jim. And we. And kind of. We folded that into discussions of, like, why would you teach that book? Why would you not teach that book? How could you teach that book? Just worth thinking about as we embark on someone saying, well, I'll just do the book differently. How about.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah. And we don't. We don't need to relitigate that particular conversation because I am sure I do not. I'm sure I've not cracked it in the years since we've done the Huck Fit episode. Like, I don't think I've had an idea on, like, the right way to do it.

[Andrew]

I don't know if. If you made it through a whole re. Listen. The episode, Andrew. But our. We did land on a good take, though. An overdue take.

[Craig]

Good. I listened to, like, the first 20 minutes. That's what I had time for.

[Andrew]

Your take was that Huck is like Locky 2 from Mario 64.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

He's there holding a camera so we can see what's going on. You were remarking that as a character in the novel, he does not drive action. He is largely there being acted upon and bearing witness to things in the world around him.

[Craig]

Is that what it feels like to listen to our podcast if you're not us? Like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard anybody say. At least he's not like Locky 2 in Mario Kart. And he takes your coins from you and he, like, helps you, but he takes your coins.

[Andrew]

And he doesn't tell you up front that he's going to take your coins. He just helps you, and then he just sneaks away with three coins. Yeah. You talked about how the book was a little vignette. I'd be interested to know how that feels in this one, and that Huck is like this, like, you know, ne' er do well, who likes to lie, but thinks he's a bad kid, which allows. Which, like, enables him to do, quote, unquote, bad things.

[Craig]

I did listen up to the point where I was talking about how Tom Sawyer is the kind of. The kind of person who lives a life free of adversity, and that frees them up to create a bunch of fake adversity for them to struggle again.

[Andrew]

And you. You really went to town on the end of the book where you were very upset about the Tom Sawyer, like, basically knew all along that they didn't need to free Jim. He was already free. And Tom Sawyer takes over the book and you. And you were very mad.

[Craig]

So Tom Sawyer is reduced, as he should be, to the role of extreme background character who is named a couple of times, seen almost never, and is not a part of the narrative at all.

[Andrew]

Uh, let's talk about.

[Craig]

Everett has at least fixed that about the original.

[Andrew]

Okay, let's.

[Craig]

I don't know if you would, like, usually think about these as, like, patches for the. For the old book. You know, like this.

[Andrew]

I have quotes from him saying that that is not how he would treat this.

[Craig]

Yeah, no, it's. It's. I wouldn't describe it that way either, but I'm just thinking, like, you know, think about this as like Service Pack 2 for the Adventures of Huck Finn.

[Andrew]

That's what that guy was doing in 2011. He was doing unofficial mods of the book. Percival Everett, born in 1956 in Georgia, grew up in South Carolina in a house built by his grandfather, came from a family full of doctors. He has written throughout his career pretty negatively about South Carolina. He went off to school.

[Craig]

Me too.

[Andrew]

He went off to school at the University of Miami and then later studied at Brown. He did get a car and just kind of drove west and says it kind of claimed him. Like, he went out there and he just. He loves it out there. He's been living in California for a long time with his wife, Danzi Senna, also a novelist. He is a distinguished professor. Professor of literature. Tried to combine those two words. Professor @ the University of Southern California. And what he's got. He's just been writing for a long time. This guy beginning.

[Craig]

Yeah, the beginning of this book has, like in other works by personal Everett lists, and it's a book. It's a lot pages, even though, you know, it's just like one column of text with like, a blank space in between each title, but they do just keep going and going.

[Andrew]

Yep. Yep. He has written two dozen novels, like four short story collections, half a dozen poetry collections, a book for children. I'll go through a couple as they. As I think they might be useful to. Knowing what he's up to. He. He studied, like, a lot of philosophy in addition to biology and chemistry and stuff. So, like, the hallmark of his work, as I understand it, is like, many of them have some sort of, like, philosophical question he's interested in. That usually manifests as, like, a bit of a conceit, a bit of a, you know, not always like a genre thing.

[Craig]

But there's like a hook, though.

[Andrew]

There's a hook.

[Craig]

So, like, elevator pitch as you.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Like to think of them.

[Andrew]

You hate being pitched in elevator.

[Craig]

I just am trying to get up or down when I'm in an elevator. Like, I don't want somebody trying to put IDs in my head.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

I'm just trying to get up or down fast.

[Andrew]

His first novel was 1983's Suitor, his first major Western novel. Because he did write a number of Westerns. 1994's God's Country. He has multiple books in his career where he's, like, riffing on the ancient Greeks, various plays and things like that.

[Craig]

Glyph, as we've discussed, those guys are all public domain, so it is.

[Andrew]

Get on in there.

[Craig]

Both mythological figures and historical figures are all in the public domain now.

[Andrew]

His 1999 novel Glyph is a story within a story about a baby named Ralph who has an IQ of 500 but chooses not to speak. And he also has, like, super strength or something.

[Craig]

Whoa. This is a baby geniuses situation.

[Andrew]

Yeah, he's, like, writing his own epitaph is the book. I think one profile of Everett I read was like, that baby is the closest anybody gets to his brain. Everett's brain.

[Craig]

Okay. I mean, I always wondered what book Boss Baby was based on. Yeah, that was based on a novel, and I guess that's the one.

[Andrew]

The book, I have not read it, but the book I was aware of before James made a splash, 2001's Erasure. It is a big critique of the publishing industry in which an author, not unlike Percival Everett himself chooses to write. He's a black author who purposefully writes an outrageous novella about, you know, poor folks living in an urban community. And it's like, what is the limit of acceptability here? Like, who signs off on what makes this stuff good? This became the film American Fiction, starring Jeffrey Wright. It's a very good movie. Won the best adapted screenplay Oscar a year or two ago. And yeah, it was apparently, I think it's a New Yorker interview I read with him or profile that talks about how that book and other books in his career are basically like responses to the critical responses to either his or other books. So Erasure, purportedly a friend of his had a copy of Push, the novel by Sapphire and he read it overnight and was like that's fine. And then he heard about how like huge the paperback deal for it was and found it a little ostentatious and not to his taste. So he wrote a novel about a guy who like compromises his high minded literary taste to write what he calls a quote unquote ghetto novel and is way too successful. And then, and then like has, you know, personal circumstances that make him take the check anyway.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

It's very cool, cool movie.

[Craig]

So you would say that that book got him a little respect the book era.

[Andrew]

It's a book about getting written anyway. Yeah, 2020's book telephone apparently got published like the movie Clue. Like there were multiple versions and they didn't tell anyone right away. Like there's like different endings but also like slightly different edited text. And they, I think they said they revealed it quote unquote a little early. He's, he's like a well regarded novelist but he's not, you know, Stephen King. Like the readership. Right. So it is interesting.

[Craig]

That is really interesting because it was like the ending is different or like what's. What part is different?

[Andrew]

The ending is different I think, but not like maybe as drastic as something like Clue but also like little turns of phrase or like just word choices here and there. It's like somebody did a different editing pass on the book but it is like still the same story. Ish.

[Craig]

This really feels like you know, the like trick quizzes where the teacher would say like really ostentatious. Make sure you read all the directions before the last direction is just like handed in blank. And don't, don't do the test.

[Andrew]

Yep, some western game nonsense.

[Craig]

Yeah, this, this feels like that test but for people in a book club. Like I feel like you could use, could successfully go through an entire book meeting and the people there would never discover that the book had been different at the end because none of them finished it.

[Andrew]

I don't remember which article I read it was. But somebody, some editor said like he's an author who very much considers the audience response to his book to be part of the art that he's made like. He's like. And that using telephone as an example, like the fact that people are then going to figure out that there's differences and like, wonder what the differences mean. He's not writing it so that you can decode it. He's writing it so that you will spend time decoding it.

[Craig]

Sure, that's fair.

[Andrew]

And that, that to him seems. He's also apparently a very evasive interview in that like he will be available, but he is not going to tell you what anything means. In the New Yorker piece, there's like a little bit where he says this is. It's literally called Percival Everett. Can't say what his novels mean, by my opinion.

[Craig]

Can't or won't?

[Andrew]

Can't.

[Craig]

It sounds like a won't.

[Andrew]

And at one point in the interview they're like, you know, leaving one spot and he just turns to the interviewer and he says, you don't have to write the profile. We could just be friends. Just don't do it.

[Craig]

That's an interesting pitch.

[Andrew]

His novel the trees in 2021, shortlisted for the Booker Prize about a series of lynch murders in 2023. Dr. No, a riff on Spy Fiction, a finalist for the National Critics Circle. And that brings us to James, his riff on Huckleberry Finn, which he told the Guardian that he, he read in prep for writing the novel. He read Huckleberry Finn 15 times and he said that quote, I wanted to blur the story. I wanted to refer to it from memory of that world rather than memory of the text. The most brutal realization at the end of 15 readings was I probably could have gotten away with 10.

[Craig]

I do get going through it multiple times because you do want to know, you want to know the whole, like every character and also the whole vibe, like front to back.

[Andrew]

Well, and it doesn't sound like he approached this as a one to one remix. So he's not like, he didn't. It doesn't sound like he wrote it with like the book open next to him.

[Craig]

I did not. I. So I stopped doing this after the first like couple of chapters. But I did do some like, control side to side searching in Huck Finn for some of the conversations that happen in this. And I'm, you know, there are definitely scenes that overlap, but. And I'm not saying there are no instances of like verbatim text in the whole work. Like I could, I could see Everett deciding, oh, I want to recreate this specific line of text verbatim so that I can like subvert it in Some way. But it did not seem like he was saying he was. He was not doing a Stephenie Meyer rewriting Twilight. Like, I have to. I have to stick to every event in this book and recreate it exactly as it was in the original.

[Andrew]

Yes. Yes. It seems like he just kind of wanted to have it in his brain and then he could go from there. He. When asked about, like, where the book came from and why he would rewrite it, I think he does credit his wife for being like, hey, that was a good idea. You said you should. You should do that.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

He says of Huckleberry Finn, I love that novel. It's the first modern novel. It's great. It doesn't have any deficiencies that I'm addressing. It addresses what Mark Twain would not have been able to address. So I got to participate in this discourse. He, like, that's kind of his logline on it. It's like the. There are things that Mark Twain does not have access to.

[Craig]

Yeah.

[Andrew]

It's a book to. He calls it. What does he say about it? That it is like.

[Craig]

I will just. I will just say he did pretty much take Tom Sawyer out of it. Well, I don't think he's. I don't think he's totally right about.

[Andrew]

About that, but he says that the importance of Huck Finn is that it's. It's the first time that slavery is not the subject of a protest novel. It's a sincere and legitimate effort of. At understanding the effects of slavery not only on the enslaved, but on the enslaver. So he has a lot of, like, positive things to say about the original novel. And he is telling us, at least, as he is willing to tell us, that he just, like, had an idea to write this character this way and just kind of be in conversation with the original, like, rather.

[Craig]

Sure.

[Andrew]

He refuses to use the word correct about it, even though plenty of reviewers are like, yeah, it's kind of correcting for some deficiencies in. Or at least lack.

[Craig]

Yeah. Like deficiencies as we. As we understand them now.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Like.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Or deficiencies that the. The character of Jim would understand as deficiencies.

[Andrew]

Yes. Yes. So, yeah, I'm interested to learn about it before we maybe take our break and. Or I'll just quickly summarize with the. The thing that. With the Pulitzer announcement that happened a few weeks ago. Yeah.

[Craig]

You keep teasing this, and I've purposefully not looked into it because I want to be stunned and shocked and. You won't.

[Andrew]

You won't be. It's fine. It Was interesting though, because it is the first time in a few years that's something that does not happen very often where the way the Pulitzer's work. So this was, you know, named the Pulitzer. When the beginning of May.

[Craig]

The jury, first they sit around and they're like, should we give it to Booth Sharkey?

[Andrew]

Well, they did that this year too. And they're like, well, he hasn't written anything lately. The jury, which is different from the like standing board, there's like a Pulitzer board, I think. And then the jury put forward like three finalists and then the, the board is supposed to vote on those finalists and whoever gets a majority, you know, wins the prize.

[Craig]

Okay.

[Andrew]

They. If they can't get to a majority, there are a couple different things that they're allowed to do, one of which is to not give an award at all. Another is to give it to something else. If they just like in the room can 3/4 of them have another book that they like, they could just do that instead.

[Craig]

This is like that stupid Facebook editorial board or whatever it is, where you're like, oh, yeah, there are two decision making bodies. But, like, one has actual power and one just has pretend power that we'll let them use if we want to let them use it.

[Andrew]

And then the third thing that they can do is they can go back to the jury and be like, okay, give us something that didn't make the cut of three. Like, give us another option. And that's what happened with James. So the recommendations from the jury were Reader Bullwinkle's Headshot, Stacy Levine's mice, 1961, and Gail Jones is the Unicorn Woman. And they did not reach a majority on any of those. So. But they did not want to award nothing. So instead they were like, what else you got? And they said James. And it, it won. And it. So it's this like, interesting little wrinkle. I think the last time it happened was 2015 and probably has been a little while before that. There was a like, kind of incendiary take about it on Litter on Lithub by Drew Bassard, which then gets, well, I'm.

[Craig]

Yeah, like, I'm sure the. I can draw up the like, contrarian, I want to be mad about something argument about this, which is like, oh, it's a safe, like consensus choice. And those other three books would have been better. But like, technically they didn't get what they needed to get. So.

[Andrew]

Yeah, well, it's like, oh, we had these three, like really interesting books by women. You know, men are overrepresented in Pulitzer awardees. And a lot of folks, like, also black authors are underrepresented. And this is a good book also. I think that, like, there's a version of it that is like, let's just. We have so few things as an industry, publishing. I think somebody in the New York Times piece about it that was just like, publishing is not in a great space. I. It would be nice if we could, like, give out these awards without any drama and without people, like, worrying about the authorities giving out the, you know, adjudication and just.

[Craig]

I can. Yeah, I can see why they wouldn't want to give out nothing because, like, if you're. If you're the. The board that decides, like, what books.

[Andrew]

Are good, and you're like, you can't find one.

[Craig]

Yeah. You don't. Like, that's terrible pr. If you want to put out a message, it's like, there's no good ones this year. Sorry.

[Andrew]

Yeah. And then the last quote that I think was interesting from that piece. Let me just pull it up. My New York Times login is being prompted for some unbelievable reason. This is another member of the organization. Levine, or I think actually was one of the authors, actually. Levine said, Percival's book is so important. Is this really the time to fuss about what might or might not be gender politics in a literary contest? Like, this is just somebody's like, it's fine. It's a good book. Let's. Let's just be. Have integrity and say it was a good book. So it made me think about it when we were talking about all the other Booth Argentin stuff. We've been on a Pulitzer kick lately. It's just worth reminding ourselves that these are just little cohorts of people.

[Craig]

It's all Calvin Ball in there also.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Calvin Ball. Kangaroo court. Sign on up, Andrew. Let's take a quick break, and then you can tell me about James. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp. Andrew, what kind of pressures do you face as a man?

[Craig]

As a man.

[Andrew]

As a man.

[Craig]

Like, one of the pressures, and I'm just realizing this just now, is the pressure to come up with an answer to this question.

[Andrew]

Oh, that's one pressure.

[Craig]

When you experience. Kind of makes sense. Yeah. Me, as a man sitting in this chair would.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Well, men today face immense pressure. Like the pressure to perform, Andrew, to provide answers to questions, to keep it all together. Right. Like, right now.

[Craig]

Yeah. You know.

[Andrew]

In all seriousness, we're talking about the fact that there are, like, millions of men who suffer from depression every year. It's often going undiagnosed. And many of us have been, like, raised socially to, like, not even conceive of that as a possibility which is. Is in and of itself a struggle. Real strength comes from opening up about what you're carrying and doing something about it so that you can be your best self for yourself and everyone in your life. If you're a man and you're feeling the weight of the world or other weights that are just getting you down, talk to someone, a friend, a loved one, maybe a therapist. I think therapy is a pretty cool tool. It's way better than spanners or T squares. Andrew. Better than measuring tapes.

[Craig]

I don't know. I think all these tools have a place.

[Andrew]

Well, yes, you know those things to.

[Craig]

Each tool it's allotted task.

[Andrew]

Simon knows that measuring tapes are for measuring your couch. And I'm here to tell you that therapy is for help, is for, you know, learning positive coping skills.

[Craig]

It's measuring your mental wellness.

[Andrew]

Yes, it's for, you know, measuring your boundaries so that you can set them and helping you be the best version of yourself. As I said, with over 35,000 therapists, BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform. It's served over 5 million people globally. It's convenient, too. You can just join a session with a therapist at the click of a button, helping you fit therapy into your busy life and plus switch therapists at any time. As the largest online therapy provider in the world, BetterHelp can provide access to mental health professionals with a diversity of expertise. So talk it out. With BetterHelp, our listeners get 10% off their first month at betterhelp.com overdue. That's BetterHelp. H-E-L- overdue. Andrew Craig, James.

[Craig]

Robert, Other Nicholas. Just saying names. James is a book, okay.

[Andrew]

That you read this week?

[Craig]

Yes.

[Andrew]

Yeah, tell me about it.

[Craig]

So the book is. The book is divided into three parts and part one is basically mostly Huckleberry Finn through the eyes of Jim, who is a runaway slave who Huck goes down the Mississippi river with in the book. The book kind of revolves. That book revolves around him in a way, but not in a way that, like, puts us into his head ever. And that's what the project of James is, is to put us in his head and to show us his, like, his evolving understanding of, like, what it is to be a slave and, like, owned by other people and, like, discovering an anger in himself and then figuring out what to. What to do with it.

[Andrew]

Okay, sure.

[Craig]

So, yeah, part one's Mostly the. The story of Huck Finn part two is Jim and Huck get split up for a stretch in Huck Finn. And this is kind of what Jim is doing during that stretch.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And then part part three is the most like reimagined me of the whole thing where. Where Jim's on a quest to get back to the. The town that he is from Hannibal, Missouri, I believe is the town he's in and to find his wife and daughter and to buy them or help them escape or in some way free them and get them all out of that life.

[Andrew]

Makes sense. And not a thing I recall being uttered at all in the original.

[Craig]

Yes. Right.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And so I brought up. Because I brought up Ryan Coogler in the.

[Andrew]

In our pre show chat before we were.

[Craig]

Yeah. As we were pre show chatting. And it's because we both watched sinners recently because sinners whips. But there are elements of that very last act of sinners that are just like. Let's just. Let's just real quick do some like, naked, like, revenge questing.

[Andrew]

Oh, okay, sure.

[Craig]

And make. Make our main character like a really cool Rambo type figure who just kind of goes on a rampage for a bit and gets everything that he wants.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

Well, that's kind of how this ends too, and I like it a lot.

[Andrew]

That comparison struck me as I was reading a book about the rest of his bibliography where he's got like, he's got a book with a 500 IQ baby. He's like, he's got.

[Craig]

We need to. I mean, this is like the Booth Tarkington thing again, I'm sorry I keep talking about Booth Tarkington, but, like, this 500 IQ baby is gonna haunt me until we read it and talk about it.

[Andrew]

I know.

[Craig]

I need you to read a book about the boss.

[Andrew]

I will commit to reading at some point when I have no idea, but I will certainly read Glyp by Percival Everett at some point.

[Craig]

If you were a 500 IQ baby, you'd be able to tell me when you were gonna read that book.

[Andrew]

If I were a 500 IQ baby, I would have it ready for tomorrow. You know, we could record tomorrow, but.

[Craig]

I would feel stupid. But that would also be a sick podcast is like a really smart baby tells a big stupid man about. Like, that would probably do a lot more downloads than we do.

[Andrew]

Yeah, well, that baby would know so much about market forces, it'd really have cracked the algorithm. But the. The stuff in American fiction, slash erasure, that is like, he's very aware of the power of bluntness and the power of artifice and, like, how. How you can just, like, throw the audience the thing that they want. And, like, what he's interested in, what the effects of that are, sure, is evident to me, which is certainly what Coogler is doing a bit in Sinners as well. So, yeah, tell me about the. Just tell me about the man. Tell me about this man.

[Craig]

So to talk about Jim in this book and how he is different while still being kind of reconcilable with the Huck Finn version of Jim, I need to read this very long, sort of expository bit that the book does about how people speak.

[Andrew]

Great. Oh, yeah.

[Craig]

So in the beginning of Huck Finn and we talked about this a bit in our episode, there is, I think, Twain and the, like, that little intro that talks about, like, the three or four different dialects that he employs in the book and that they were painstakingly researched. And I'm telling you about them because otherwise you would just assume that these people were trying to speak the same and not quite getting there. Yeah, yeah, because Huck is not speaking in, like, the Queen's English either. No, no, but. So, yeah, the black characters in Huck Finn speak in a very specific, like, patois kind of, like, thing, and they do in this book, too, but there's. There's a reason for that, and they also don't always. Okay, so this is the beginning of a long chapter that we've already been introduced to, the concept of, like, the code switching that they do at this point.

[Andrew]

Great.

[Craig]

But this is a big section where they're, like, explaining it to children and in so doing, like, explaining it to us because we are. We are also like children because we don't know anything about this.

[Andrew]

Okay, sure.

[Craig]

That evening, I sat down with Lizzy and six other children in our cabin and gave a language lesson. These were indispensable. Safe movement through the world depended on mastery of language fluency. The young one sat on the packed dirt floor, and I was on one of our two homemade stools. The hole in the roof pulled the smoke from the fire that burned in the middle of the shack. Papa, why do we have to learn this? White folks expect us to sound a certain way, and it can only help if we don't disappoint them. I said, the only ones who suffer when they are made to feel inferior is us. Perhaps I should say when they don't feel superior. So let's pause to review some of the basics. Don't make eye contact a boy said. Right, Virgil. Never speak first, a girl said. That's correct, February, I said. Lizzie looked at the other children and then back to me. Never address any subject directly when talking to another slave, she said. What do we call that?

[Andrew]

I asked.

[Craig]

Together, they said. Signifying. Excellent. They were happy with themselves and I let that feeling linger. Let's try some situational translations. Something extreme first. You're walking down the street and you see that Mrs. Holiday Kitchen is on fire. She's standing in her yard, her back to her house, unaware. How do you tell her? Fire. Fire, January said. Direct. And that's almost correct, I said. The youngest of them, lean and tall, five year old Rachel said. Laudy miss him. Looky there. Perfect, I said. Why is that correct? Lizzie raised her hand. Because we must let the whites be the ones who name the trouble. And why is that? I asked. February said. Because they need to know everything before us. Because they need to name everything. Good, good. You all are really sharp today. Okay, let's imagine now that it's a grease fire. She left bacon unattended on the stove. Holiday is about to throw water on it. What do you say, Rachel? Rachel paused. Missums that water gone make it worse. Of course that's true. What's the problem with that? Virgil said. You're telling her she's doing the wrong thing. I nodded. So what should you say? Lizzie looked at the ceiling and spoke while thinking it through. Would you like for me to get some sand? Correct approach. But you didn't translate it. She nodded. Oh Lord. Mrs. Ma' am. You want for me to get some sand?

[Andrew]

Wow.

[Craig]

Good get gets some is hard to say. This is from Glory, the oldest child. The S's. That's true, I said. And it's okay to trip over it. In fact, it's good. You want for me to get s some sand, Miss some Holiday? What if they don't understand? Lizzy asks. That's okay. Let them work to understand. You mumble sometimes so they can have the satisfaction of telling you not to mumble. They enjoy the correction and thinking you're stupid. Remember, the more they choose to not want to listen, the more we can say to one another around them. Why did God set it up like this? Rachel asks. With them as masters and us as slaves, there is no God, child. There's religion, but there's no God of theirs. Their religion tells that we will get our reward in the end. However, it apparently doesn't say anything about their punishment. But when we're around them, we believe in God. Oh lawdy Lord, we's be believin. Religion is just a controlling tool they employ and adhere to when convenient. So it's all very long. But you can see, like, the four different things that that passage is.

[Andrew]

Is.

[Craig]

Is.

[Andrew]

It's doing so much at once.

[Craig]

It's doing a lot of stuff. It's. It's telling you, okay, here is. Here is Jim and how he is different from Jim in the book Huck Finn.

[Andrew]

His name is.

[Craig]

Yes, Well, I mean, that's a thing that happens at the end.

[Andrew]

Okay, sure.

[Craig]

Sign. It's significant that it happens at the end.

[Andrew]

Okay, sure.

[Craig]

Because he is. He is not. He is not James, in fact, at this point.

[Andrew]

Okay, okay, okay.

[Craig]

But, yeah, so it is showing us how he is different. It's showing us how, like, black people in general are different. It's showing us that they act differently around each other than they do around white people. It tells us, like, multiple reasons why they do that and have to do that. And it sets up a lot of stuff in the book because there is, like, a lot of communication between, like, Huck and Jim and, like, periods where Jim accidentally forgets to do his, like, slave translating thing and just, like, speaks in his real voice. And Huck is like, what do you. What.

[Andrew]

Yeah, sure. What's fun to me about that just structurally is it reads like a really elaborate. And I don't mean this as a pejorative. It reads as a very thoughtfully considered key and Peele sketch. It is like the structure of it is to land some laughs, but with every laugh, you're going like, oh, oh, oh. Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. It also does a thing where he, you know, Everett said. Another thing he said in multiple interviews views was that, like, just growing up as a reader and as a writer, the two representations of black characters that he ever encountered were, you know, kind of ghettoized urban fiction or just plantation slave fiction. And if he's going to go into a story like this, I think he. It's from this passage anyway. What's coming across to me is the, like, there's a lot more agency in that existence then is typically put into stories, especially like, kind of mainstream ones that have. That have, you know, gotten a lot of attention, where it's like, what are the. What are the different ways that you survive? What are the different ways that you keep your community alive? So he's building out a version of that that is very specific and very different from the original text.

[Craig]

And it's. The book is also really concerned with, like, language and writing and books in.

[Andrew]

General, that seems to be his deal. Yeah.

[Craig]

Yeah. It starts. And you don't understand why this is. But the book begins. I said it was split into three parts, but there's actually a little. A little, like not quite a prologue, but like a little beginning bit where it is just giving you the lyrics to a bunch of weird, like, southern songs that are just like stereotypes about black people and the kinds of stuff that they do and like. Like a sort of Jimmy crack corn.

[Andrew]

Yep, sure.

[Craig]

Turkey in the straw sort of stuff. And you don't get why that is, but you do. Jim can read and write. He does have to hide this from. From Huck when they're. When they are hanging out.

[Andrew]

Yep.

[Craig]

But he is. At one point he gets like a little nub of a pencil. At another point he gets a little notebook. Because there's a point in the book where there's a section in Huckleberry Finn where they meet those two shyster guys who. The King and the Duke and the King and the Duke. They sell Jim, who's not there, to some guy. And this is happening in this book. I don't remember what happens in the original, but they sell Jim to somebody. And then that guy sells Jim to like a minstrel troupe. Like a bunch of. Mostly a bunch of white people who put on blackface and then perform for other white people. And the leader of that troupe, who, you know, who fancies himself a, you know, an open minded sort of anti slavery sort of guy, but also has just paid somebody $200 to get to own a manner. A 10. His minstrel troupe.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And he tells Jim like, well, I figure I'll pay you a dollar per performance. And I paid $200 for you, so you just. You just have to do 199 more performances. Oh, my God, will be square. And. And Jim is like, well, this is just. This is just more. This is just more slavery then. But anyway, this guy has like a leather bound notebook that he writes all these lyrics for new cool minstrel songs that he's.

[Andrew]

Oh, cool.

[Craig]

And then Jim, when he runs away from these people because they get to a town and the entire troop is like, well, we have to. Because they've been putting blackface on Jim.

[Andrew]

I was gonna ask. Yeah, I read about that.

[Craig]

Yeah, to like disguise him. And in this town they're like, well, we just had a close call where somebody like touched Jim's hair and was like, that's a really convincing wig. If anybody found out that Jim was black in this town, like, he would die. And probably we all would get killed too. So he has to stay. He has to stay behind while we perform. And Jim runs away because he has discovered that his lot with these people is not any better than his lot has been with any other master that he's ever had. But he takes this leather bound notebook and he decides, I'm not going to tear out and get rid of these pages with these stupid minstrel songs on them, because it's kind of a reminder of a bunch of stuff. So the frame is like, this is a book that Jim wrote himself and you're in that book and he's reading. He wrote it in that notebook.

[Andrew]

That's cool.

[Craig]

Minstrel songs in the beginning.

[Andrew]

So that's okay.

[Craig]

Yeah, it's just a cool, like, structural thing that also backs up a lot of the other stuff.

[Andrew]

I think that to me is like, that is, as we're learning about it, that again, this seems like an evolution of the. The type of stuff that Everett's been doing, but now he's do the. One of the reason that this kind of, this book broke Containment, obviously is it's dealing with Huck Finn, but it is also like in the tradition of literary retellings that we were talking about, it is just. It has an underpinning of structural playfulness that is maybe a little different from, hey, I'm here to. I'm just here to like flesh out all the characters that didn't get their fair say. Like, he's seems like he's interested in a little bit more than that, right?

[Craig]

Yeah, definitely. And again, you know, having just read or I don't forget even which Twilight book it is that we just like which ver. Which hopping and screwing of. I think we were the gender swap one recently.

[Andrew]

Yes.

[Craig]

The one this is most like is the one from Edwards perspective.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

But anyway, no, it's, it's.

[Andrew]

What's that one called? Cold Harbor? What's it called?

[Craig]

It's not. It's. It's got a green apple on the.

[Andrew]

It.

[Craig]

No, that's. Dang, That's a gender swap one again. Midnight Sun.

[Andrew]

Midnight Sun. Midnight Sun. Okay.

[Craig]

I just keep thinking about Midnight sun because that one is one where Stephenie Meyer is like, in interviews complaining about her second of three rewritings of this one book that she did.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

About how she felt like shackled to the. The scenes and the dialogue and the stuff that she did in the first book because she had to painstakingly recreate it for this other book that she did.

[Andrew]

And I wanna. Oh, I Wanna.

[Craig]

It's just so not whatever it is interested in doing. And I thought, I thought going in, like, surely there will be some of this stuff that's like mirrored so that it can comment on the, on the different contexts that it's being like mirrored in. But it's doing that with vibes, but I don't think it's really doing that so much with like the exact dialogue.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because also there's a couple interview things from him that I find interesting. Everybody talks about how he's been spending his whole life talking about writing the. Writing the abstract novel. Could he write a novel that is like how, how abstract is it? Like kind of devoid of context and character, like just language. Like he's this, it's this kind of holy, you know, white whale for, for him.

[Craig]

That sounds like the kind of thing you spent a lot of time thinking about.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And then he does. You were a 500 IQ baby and you could not. And your body could not move you or do anything. All you had to do is lay around and think about stuff. That's the book that you would come up.

[Andrew]

He writes other books instead. But there is this like, why did I bring that up?

[Craig]

I don't know. I'm just trying to think about ways to bring it back to the 500 IQ baby as often as I possibly.

[Andrew]

But they're the. Oh, it's like. Cuz he doesn't, he doesn't. He like talks about how his books, like as soon as he writes them, they're out of him. Like he does. He's like, I can't even talk to you about what I meant for him. Every book he starts it knowing something and then by the end of it he's doesn't like he doesn't understand it or doesn't know it anymore. Like it's not. Yeah, he's not answering a question. He's like starting with it and then leaves with questions, which is interesting.

[Craig]

And it's the closest I think I've heard anybody articulate to how it feels to me. When we record a podcast, you come.

[Andrew]

In going, I've got this. And then by the end I just.

[Craig]

Read the, this book and I'm ready to talk about it for an hour. And then you ask me about it like six weeks later I'm like, oh, I guess I read that one about.

[Andrew]

The passage that you just read. Somebody asked him. This was an Elle magazine, another good interview. This was called James Magazine about the Chicago train.

[Craig]

Of course.

[Andrew]

James author Percival Everett on freedom, violence and The Lure of Huckleberry Finn by Cree Miles asks him, in your research of the book, what did you find out about enslaved people's use of coded language and how extensive it was? And he goes, oh, I didn't find out anything about coded language in that way. It's just the fact that human beings, when they are oppressed and under fire, find ways to talk to each other in ways that their oppressors won't understand. Whether you're black or white in the death camps or enslaved people find a way to talk to each other that's safe. Like, he's just. In the same way that he's like, yeah, I read the book 15 times so that I could write it without thinking about it ever again. He's just like, I don't know, man, this. I wanted to. This is what I thought worked. This is what my brain.

[Craig]

I'm sure there's actually. Yeah. A bunch of, like, a bunch of really interesting research about, like, what. What code switch. What we would call now code switching. Code switching. What that looked like in. In that era. In this book, the. The sort of impression that I got is very like, I'm going to. I'm going to implement the modern version of code switching just in this. In the context of a retelling of.

[Andrew]

Huckleberry in the same way that they say the F word on Deadwood would, so that we understand it. Even though they weren't probably doing it that way. They were doing different curses. And David Milch knew that we would. We would find their. Their curses very quaint and silly. So instead he had them say the F word and a bunch of other words that I won't say on our podcast.

[Craig]

I. Yeah, I guess I had never thought about, like, somebody had to invent the F word and then decide it was bad.

[Andrew]

Well, but they were also saying, like, a whole bunch of, like, you know, biblical swears that we would, you know.

[Craig]

Well, and you. You say a bunch of like, goofy old timey, like, oh, by the. By the Lord shorts or whatever, like.

[Andrew]

Dumb while you, like, stab a man and, like, eat his eyeball. And you're like, well, that's not as compelling.

[Craig]

Oh, good.

[Andrew]

Good.

[Craig]

Golly.

[Andrew]

Can you talk to me a little bit about his relationship with Huck? Because that is, like, a big part of the original, and I'm interested to know what the, like, this version of that looks like.

[Craig]

So, Huck, at the beginning, we're kind of given to understand, and anybody. I feel like pretty much anybody who reads this book is going to come in with sort of an elementary understanding of the relationship between Jim and Huck is like, they are definitely two people from very different, like, sides of the tracks, as it were. But they are also, you know, they find kinship with one another. They sort of see themselves as peers in a way that's in this. In this book. At the beginning, Jim is like, that boy's okay. Like, Huck is a person who he, you know, he says to other people and sort of thinks to himself, you know, this little white boy's all right. He has his heart in the right place, and that's kind of what we get from him. And then once they are on the run together, it's a. Like, there's a little bit more of self interest in it. Yeah, there is. This white boy and I have run away. And the way that he chose to run away was to, like, fake his own death so that it looked like his crappy dad pap had killed him. And Jim is like, we both disappear at the same, same time. They're gonna think I did this, and they're gonna be looking for me. Like, not only am I a runaway slave, but they're gonna pin whatever happened.

[Andrew]

To him on me. Yeah.

[Craig]

Yeah. So it is in my best interest to keep this kid alive, because if he's alive, then I cannot be punished as much for the interesting.

[Andrew]

Yeah, well, and stay with him.

[Craig]

There's a little bit of that.

[Andrew]

Stay with him. So you. So, like, if you're not separated. Yeah, okay. Okay, okay.

[Craig]

Yeah. But. But. But still, Jim is. It is not as though Jim is letting Huck into the inner sanctum. Like, he's still doing the. The slave talking around him.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

The slave code, switching language. He's not letting on that he can read or write. Anytime Jim ever has, like, a near death experience, he kind of tends to see, like, historical or philosophical or occasionally, like, fictional figures who appear to him. I heard about kind of have a. Yeah. Like, I don't have a ton to. To talk about.

[Andrew]

I know Voltaire shows up, I think.

[Craig]

Yeah. And they just kind of, like, talk about, like, the different forms that, like, racism takes.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Like somebody. Somebody. You have a near death experience because a snake bites you, and then somebody shows up and is like, listen, everybody's created. Everybody's created equal, and I don't think anybody should own anybody. But then it's. Well, the biology. The biology of white people and black people is just different. And that explains a lot. It's like a, you know, a more refined, subtle kind of racism, but it is still, like, getting back around to it's big Renaissance. This is why. Yeah. And this is why white people are better than black people. Like, it's, it's still like working toward the same end. It's just trying to put a. A nice, like, veneer over top of it. And you see, like, unfortunately, still a lot of that happening now.

[Andrew]

A lot of.

[Craig]

Including, including in the, in the halls of power in our. In our wonderful country.

[Andrew]

It's certainly interesting that it's like folks like Voltaire or somebody would show up because, like, that is something I, I didn't learn until my 20s.

[Craig]

Like, learn to battle. Everybody remembers where they were when they learned about Voltaire.

[Andrew]

Well, no, no, no. We all did. But the, the extent to which, like the, The European Renaissance, like, yes, it's a big deal. A lot of like, you know, advancements in various fields happened, but also there's like this kind of perpetuating the accomplishments of white people part of it. And then, of course, it precedes centuries of very specific enslavement and colonialism in the new. In the new world. Right. So there. The extent to which the Renaissance is its own hype machine was not something I understood as I was learning about it in high school.

[Craig]

That was one of those are the big things that they invented during the Renaissance. It's like the printing press and the hype machine.

[Andrew]

Tell me more about when they. Is there anything else about more when they get separated? Because I do think that is like the. The minstrel stuff stuff is what I saw to be like, the. Aside from the end, like, the most in my notes say, like fabricated. But like, what does fabricated mean in this context?

[Craig]

Sure, yeah, I think I. I think I talked about the. It is not honestly, a very long section in the book. Like, okay, it is more.

[Andrew]

It stands out. It sounds like. But.

[Craig]

No, it does stand out. But what. What comes out of the minstrel section, which is it at the. That the part of. That's kind of what ends part. Part one, as I recall.

[Andrew]

Okay, sure.

[Craig]

And then what comes out of that is that there is a. There is another runaway slave in this minstrel troupe who can and has been passing as white, whose name I think is Norman. And the entire second part of the book is, okay, it's not Jim and Huck anymore, because Huck, you know, when they came upon white people, Huck could occasionally say, like, oh, this is my slave, Jim, and like, explain why they were both on the road together to people who weren't looking for a runaway slave named Jim, which is kind of a lot of people, but. But Huck's a little boy and he can't, like, legally own property. Like.

[Andrew]

Sure.

[Craig]

In that way. So it's not really a thing that worked. But with Norman, who, you know, occasionally Jim has a thought like, what if this is just a crazy white person who, like, learned how to do the code switching thing somehow and is just, like, lying to me about this?

[Andrew]

Oh, no.

[Craig]

I think, you know, in the end, I think we're meant to understand that they're both like, he's just a very light skinned black person who can pass. So in the same way that Jim and Huck being together and like, that whole passage I read about all the code switching and language and perspective and how you have to make white people feel to try and keep them from getting upset at you, because they'll get upset at you for any or no reason. Traveling around with Norman is another. Like, I can go around into towns and, like, talk to other people and appear around other people because I have somebody with me who seems like he could possibly own me, and so I don't have to be hiding any anymore. Like, when it's just Jim on his own or even like Jim and Huck, it's. It's very much like we have to run through the woods, we have to be on the river. We have to hide from everybody. With Norman, it's, you know, we can be a little more out in the open because you can, like, cosplay as my master and I can cosplay as your slave.

[Andrew]

Sure. Yeah.

[Craig]

Even though anytime that Norman is, like, falling down on something and Jim has to, like, talk to him to help him play the role that he's playing. Everybody's like, why is your slave talking to you so much?

[Andrew]

He gave a.

[Craig]

So the.

[Andrew]

He gave. He gave a good response to just, like, how he thought about adding other black characters and slave folks. This is from the Elle interview, where they asked about the other characters that they placed along James's journey. He said, I'm trying to address a more contemporary view of African Americans. There is this cultural perception, disembodied belief that you can talk about the African experience as if it is. Is a thing, as if it's not influenced by geography, religion, socioeconomic concern. When I was younger, I was asked, who is the leader of it being black America? And that would be completely unintelligible to a white person. Who is your white leader? You might get an answer from someone who would say David Duke. But then, of course, you'd know who you were dealing with. So in that same way, the institution of slavery had to be a different experience for different people. It's just a way of trying to be fair to participants in a life. Yeah, he's just, like, interesting to hear him. He's way more comfortable talking about his approach than talking about what the output of the novel is, which is just kind of fascinating, which is fine.

[Craig]

Like, I think, you know, I think I often think that studying inputs and then.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Craig]

Like, I think that is. It's more interesting to read somebody's, like, thought process and motives sometimes and, like, connect the dots yourself than it is for them to be like, well, this is what I meant with this character.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah.

[Craig]

But, yeah, you can see the thing about Norman that's interesting. I mean, there are a lot of interesting things, but one of the things is, like, how instantly any other black person can clock him as a black person who is passing for white and no white people know anything about it. Even though Norman still gets, like. Even though he's been successfully passing for a long time, Norman still gets. He gets nervous about it. Like, he gets freaked out about having to pass with. For somebody. And so the sex. The second part of the book is they are doing this the whole time. Jim doesn't really. He doesn't have, like, a place he's trying to get. He's just like, I've got to stay free and I've got to figure out a way to get my family back.

[Andrew]

Yep.

[Craig]

So there's nothing. Not for. For the vast majority of the book, like, oh, I've got to get to this town, or I've got to catch this boat, or I've got to, like, meet this person. There's. There's not a. There's not a. You know, nobody's trying to get anybody to the Greek. There's not a. There's not like a destination.

[Andrew]

Well, and I honestly think that that.

[Craig]

Serves as like, a scaffolding for the. The narrative that's going.

[Andrew]

And I've certainly read books where the, like, the Underground Railroad is portrayed a bit more like a train you have to catch than not where it's like, you have to meet this person at this time, and then they will move you. And kind of the impression I got from reading. What was that? Gilead. And then from what this is putting down is just like, I don't know, man. You got to get out there and then. Then you will figure out what. Maybe what you do next. Like, it.

[Craig]

The under. Yeah. The Underground Railroad is mentioned in this. But it's like, it's Jim. He does not. He does not. He's not looking for it and he never finds it.

[Andrew]

It.

[Craig]

But he is like, it would. I like to think of. I. I like to think of the idea of this, like, existing. Like, it makes me feel better to imagine that this, this is real, even though I have not seen evidence of it.

[Andrew]

Cool, cool, cool.

[Craig]

Like I've heard. I've heard about it. I've never experienced it and it. But. But it's nice to think that it's out there.

[Andrew]

Well, yeah. How could you see evidence of it until it hap. Until you're able to partake in it, you know?

[Craig]

So, so Norman and Jim are both like, they've both got people that they want to buy. And Norman is. As a somebody who can pass for white. Like, Jim can't go back to his former master and be like, sell me my.

[Andrew]

Nope, nope.

[Craig]

My wife kid as a runaway slave. And so the plan that they kind of concoct is, okay, Norman, you are going to sell me to somebody and get some money and then I'm going to run away and we're going to meet up and you're going to sell me again. We're going to do that a few times until we have enough money that you can go and like, free my family and you can go and free your family and everybody's going to be. Everybody's going to be okay.

[Andrew]

Okay. It seems complicated and perhaps dicey, but.

[Craig]

Yeah, it seems complicated and dicey, but like, Jim is truly operating from like, I have nothing to lose.

[Andrew]

Yeah, of course.

[Craig]

Position. Because he's like, everybody, everybody in this world is either like actively chasing me specifically or just sees me generally as property and not as a person. So like, you know what? I am not risking anything by doing all of this risky behavior because I don't like.

[Andrew]

Oh, yeah. Oh, for sure. Yeah, yeah.

[Craig]

So they pull this gambit off once, but Jim is like whipped pretty brutally by the person who he's sold to. And then he meets somebody who he thinks is like a young boy, but then she takes her shirt off, she has breasts, and he's like, oh, you're, you're a, you know, you're like a 15 year old young woman and he sees his daughter in her and he knows that the, the owner of this, this sawmill or whatever it is is, you know, is sexually forcing himself on her. And he's like, okay, I've got to get you out. And they, so, so they run away together and Norman shows up he's like, what are you doing? This is not the plan.

[Andrew]

Yep.

[Craig]

And they try to run away, and they. They. They are not quite caught, but they are caught up to. And then she gets shot and killed.

[Andrew]

Oh.

[Craig]

And this is all, like, part of this, like, evolution of Jim, like, discovering this anger that's inside him and, like, grabbing it and, like, trying to, like. It's a strange feeling to him because he's felt, like, so kind of helpless and subject to the whims of a cruel, uncaring universe for so long that he just doesn't know what to do with angry. But then there is a. After this happens, he and Norman, like, catch up with, like, a steamboat, and they. They almost get caught, and they're hanging out in the boiler room with another slave who's like, I. I don't know what's up with. With the two of you, but I know something is up. And then the steamboat blows up because the boiler breaks.

[Andrew]

Whoa.

[Craig]

And there are two people who are kind of calling for Jim's help in the river to try. Try and, like, help save them and get them to shore. And one of them is Norman, and one of them is Huck, who's back. Oh, Huck's back, Back.

[Andrew]

Huck's back.

[Craig]

And Jim saves Huck, and Norman is kind of assumed to have to have drowned. And Jim feels really off with that awful about that. It's another, like, small, like, building block and this, like, anger about all this injustice that. That Jim has to deal with. So the big, big twist in this, which is part two, ends with the steamboat blowing up. Part three is a little bit more Jim and Huck, and then they go back to Hannibal, and then some other stuff happens. Happens. But at this point, Jim is like, he. He's just had it up to here with all of this. He does not want to keep speaking in this, like, this coded language in front of Huck. And so he just starts speaking, like, explicitly in his normal tone of voice. And Huck is like, I don't. What. What's your. What's your deal? And Jim says to Huck, like, I'm your dad.

[Andrew]

Oh, like you said, your father?

[Craig]

Yes. It's just like Darth Vader.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And Huck says, no, that ain't. Lordy, that ain't possible.

[Andrew]

Huh?

[Craig]

That's not actually how it goes.

[Andrew]

No, I'm sure that's not what he says.

[Craig]

I was just fun in you.

[Andrew]

Okay, great. Does he yell? No. Like Luke Skywalker?

[Craig]

No, he. I mean, not. He doesn't yell no. Like Luke Skywalker, he does say, I don't know if I believe you, because if you are my dad, you've been lying to me about everything for my whole life. And that sucks.

[Andrew]

Huh?

[Craig]

But I think. I think we are meant to think that. That Jim is actually Huck's dad.

[Andrew]

Is this a thing that.

[Craig]

And there's a. There's a. So there was a small hint of something earlier in the book which I didn't talk about on purpose, where another.

[Andrew]

Keeping secrets from me.

[Craig]

Andrew, I'm lying to you. Always. Always. All these little lies, and I'm very good at it. So you'll never know which ones are the truth and which ones are lies. And also, I always tell the truth, but also I always lie.

[Andrew]

This is why you drive yourself insane playing social deduction games.

[Craig]

Because nobody knows where I stand. It serves me well in life, but it serves me badly in social deductions.

[Andrew]

You try to tell the truth so badly and everyone goes. Goes. I don't know about that.

[Craig]

It's just in a social deduction game, and the kind of game we're talking about is a game where, like, everybody.

[Andrew]

Has to determine like, or who the.

[Craig]

Who the, like, secret liar or. As long as suspicion does not turn to me in the first place, I'm perfectly fine at these games and have a fine time. As soon as anybody starts to suspect me, it becomes an out of control avalanche where nobody can do anything but suspect me until they have, like, knocked me out of the game by incorrectly identifying me as the liar.

[Andrew]

Something about. Well, but something about the spotlight shining on you. Amps up. Whatever it is, even when you're telling.

[Craig]

The truth is inside me.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Whatever thing it is in your, like, tool set that makes people nervous in these games, even though you're like, I'm telling the truth. And you're like, like, well, I can never, ever believe you ever again.

[Craig]

Yeah. Yeah. Like, once somebody gets it into their heads that I must be lying, it's really hard to dislodge it.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah.

[Craig]

And we have other friends. Our friend Chris I think of as somebody who I can never tell if he's lying or not.

[Andrew]

No idea.

[Craig]

The complete, exact opposite.

[Andrew]

Yep. Uh huh. Uh huh. Uh huh. It's very frustrating.

[Craig]

Yeah. I mean, it's specifically frustrating for me because if I could achieve that, then I would be perfect.

[Andrew]

It would be great. Yeah. But so you. So you were lying to me by omission when you did not tell me.

[Craig]

When I did not tell you that another black character in the book, in the Same way that most black characters can clock Norman pretty instantly.

[Andrew]

Like, or something.

[Craig]

What do you. What are you doing with that? Is that boy passing, like, what's his. What's his deal? And Jim is very, like, He's. That is not the point where Jim reveals, like, Huck. The big secret between him and Huck to anybody. He is just like, what do you. I don't. What. I don't know what you're talking about.

[Andrew]

Huh.

[Craig]

But, yeah, Huck is another sort of white passing black character in this telling.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

If you believe Jim, which I. Which I think we're meant to. But, you know, if you asked Everett, you'll probably get some very cryptic answer about how he just wants to be a brain floating in a jar thinking of words or whatever it is.

[Andrew]

One.

[Craig]

And it becomes like, Huck for a. For a minute is like, well, I have to. You know, I. I'm a. I'm an N word. I have to act like an N word. I have to, like, talk like you. And Jim is like, first, you're doing it wrong because you don't understand what's going on. And two, like, this. This. This gift that I can give to you as, like, a white passing boy is like, you can. You can decide what to be like. You can be free if you want to be. And you should just go do that.

[Andrew]

Huh.

[Craig]

And that's kind of where the. The Jim Huck relationship ends. The entire third act of the book. And then we just wrap it up.

[Andrew]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Craig]

Is Jim goes back to Hannibal, the town.

[Andrew]

At this point, we've, like, none of the Tom Sawyer stuff is going to happen. It doesn't seem like.

[Craig]

It doesn't. It hasn't, and it doesn't. It's great. Jim goes back to town and he finds that his wife and daughter have been sold. And none of the other slaves in town, like, know who they were sold to, because that is not information that they would be privy to. And Jim watches one of the slave owners, like, assault one of the. One of the women. And he just has to. Has to sit in a corner and just kind of watch it. So Jim is. Jim has watched this thing happen. And you get another little statement of, like, a statement that kind of sums up how Jim has behaved in the. In the book up to now, because it's. It's not quite. You know, you've seen people who are willing to beat slaves for no reason other than to, like, prove their own dominance. Like, it is not a. Yeah. He says, I hated that man. I hated myself for not intervening. I hated the world that wouldn't let me apply justice without the certain retaliation of injustice. I hated that such violence had been served to my wife and would be served to my daughter. I hated that the overseer would return to Katie again and again.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

And so, so often when Jim is given a chance to, to retaliate or to do violence to a white person or something like, he, he has found himself pausing in that because not, not because he thinks that it would be wrong to do what he wants to do, but because he sees in this world that is so deeply injust, there is nothing I can do, however good it feels in the moment, that will do anything other than, like, bring more pain on me and other black people.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

Yeah. And so the, the, the other thing that's happening in part three, the backdrop is there's some kind of war that's happening. I guess the Southern slate states, like, tried to leave and I don't, I don't know, man. What's going on with this war?

[Andrew]

Is that a bit of a time jump then? Is that, like, is, is that, is that that where the, is that this is all presented?

[Craig]

Like the distance between the beginning of the book and the end of the book is like a, you know, weeks or months. It is not a, not a time jump of years. It may be that the, that, that Everett is playing a little bit with the timeline because I do not believe that the Civil War factors into the.

[Andrew]

That'S what I'm saying. Like, I think Huck Finn is like 1840s. That's, that's kind of what I'm wondering if he's like, alighting some time here.

[Craig]

I, I, I think he is sort of moved the time that it is, because in many ways, especially for Jim, 1840 or 1860 doesn't really matter that much.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

[Craig]

Like, the way that he has to exist in society does not, does not really.

[Andrew]

Except now Everett's being like, but what if it was now when the war is a coming.

[Craig]

Well, and even then Jim is like, well, this, I mean, if this war is happening, even if one of the sides states like, a desire to get rid of slavery as a, as a goal, it's going to be like, incidental and it's not going to be like a total, you know, is not going to be a total freedom for. No, I knew that whatever the cause of their war, freeing slaves was an incidental premise and would be an incidental result.

[Andrew]

Yeah.

[Craig]

He says, yeah. What were we talking about? Oh, so, so Jim So Jim sees this, that this, like, war is happening in the background. Jim has had this anger sort of building in him. And so he goes to Judge. What's the, what's the name of the judge from?

[Andrew]

Thacky. Thackeray. Thacky. It's Thaney. It's not Taney. That's a bad Judge.

[Craig]

Thatcher. Thatcher. Judge Thatcher. He goes to Judge Thatcher's house because he's going to find like the bill of sale. He's going to find where his daughter ended up.

[Andrew]

His.

[Craig]

His wife went, sure. And Judge. Judge Thatcher walks in on him. And at this point, Thatcher's like, oh, Jim, like they want, they want to hang you twice. They want to hang you every day. That's not Tuesday. These are two different ways that the judge says that everybody wants to hang Jim. And at this point, like when he says Jim, like this is the first time that Jim says a James actually, because you see a little passage like after he gets that leather bound notebook that I mentioned, you get this little bit of Jim's writing. And the very first sentence of it is something like, they call me Jim. I haven't chosen a name yet. And so at this moment where Jim has killed the overseer who assaulted that woman.

[Andrew]

Oh.

[Craig]

And he's decided, I'm gonna, I'm gonna get my wife and my daughter back. He snuck into this white man's house. He's got a pistol. Like, he's armed and he's got, he's got this anger. He's got like a direction that he's. He's pointing it in. And he is not doing the like code switching slave speak in front of this guy anymore. Like he, he has decided, like, this is, this is as far as I can be pushed. I am, I'm gonna be, be. I'm going to be pushing back now. Like, that is, that is what I am doing. And Thatcher is really like. Jim can tell that Thatcher is really terrified. And it's not of the gun and it's not of his physical presence. It's of the slave who's like really well spoken in front of him and just like break. Breaking all the rules about how a slave is supposed to behave in front of a. Front of a white person.

[Andrew]

Way more of a person, quote unquote, than he expects.

[Craig]

Yeah. And the sum total of what you've picked up from everything that Jim has said about writing and communication and code switching and all of it is just this thing that they are usually trying to hide from the white people, which is if you let on that you have deeper thoughts and you're capable of planning and colluding and thinking. Then the terrifying thing for them is, like, the realization that they don't know how, like, deep that goes. And they don't. They, like the ground could shift underneath them really quickly. And that, that just thought is really terrifying.

[Andrew]

The whole enterprise only for, for many of, for many white folks okay with slavery, it works because there is a dehumanizing aspect to it.

[Craig]

Yep.

[Andrew]

Him. Yeah.

[Craig]

That's like the whole root of the thing.

[Andrew]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. The othering. And yeah.

[Craig]

So, yeah, the end of the book is just Jim get James now gets this information from Thatcher, makes Thatcher row him down the river aways toward the town where his wife and daughter are.

[Andrew]

And at this point, he's just like, said, like, hey, Huck, have fun out there. Like, Huck has just gone off or you're going to tell me about this?

[Craig]

I guess I think he's like, the thing with Huck is he's like, go back to, you know, go back to your, your life and be a, be a white person. And like, and Huck tells him as they part, like, Jim asks him, you know, have you picked a side in this war? And Huck says, oh, well, the union side.

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

And, and, you know, even though Jim, he had that thing to say about how, you know, ending slavery would be kind of an incidental result of whatever this war is, like, at least of the two sides that, you know, sure is like the good one. So that's good. But he's kind of sent Huck off to, like, you know, you could, you can pass. You'll be okay. Like, go and, go and do that.

[Andrew]

Cool. Okay. Sorry, go ahead. He's on the boat. He's going to his family, and, you.

[Craig]

Know, he shows up at this other plantation or whatever, and he, he sees it is a, like a breeding ground. It's described as. So he shows up first to the, like, the male part of this plantation and frees a few men, and then they go and they, they find the, they go over and find the women, and they, they find James's wife and his daughter, and they, like, set the whole thing on fire. And the plantation owner comes out and is like, hey, you got to put out this fire. And he realizes that nobody's listening to him, and James comes up with his pistol and just, like, shoots him and kills him.

[Andrew]

Oh, my God. Okay, so now I, I, I didn't know this stuff. And so now your Coogler comparison does make way more sense.

[Craig]

It makes More sense, don't it?

[Andrew]

Okay.

[Craig]

I pointed my pistol at him. I'm the angel of death come to offer sweet justice in the night. I said. I am a sign. I am your future. I am James. I pulled back the hammer on my pistol. Pistol. What in tarnation? He cocked his weapon. The shot I fired rang through that valley like a cannon blast. It echoed seemingly forever. All of those with me stopped and watched the man receive the lead. His chest exploded red on his night clothes. He did not fall like a tree. Nothing about him was that big. He merely fell face first into a darkness none of us could see. The women behind him screamed, but their sounds were lost in the roar of the flames and the night. The wind became wild and stirred the fire, and so they kind of just run away. And that's the end of the book.

[Andrew]

Huh?

[Craig]

So you can. You could see why that would, like, bring to mind that little. Next.

[Andrew]

Oh, totally.

[Craig]

Bit of. Bit of Sinners.

[Andrew]

Yeah, totally. Totally.

[Craig]

You see Michael B. Jordan in those sick 90s clothes in that other scene.

[Andrew]

He looks so good. And the look for Haley Steinfeld is so good, man. She's great in that movie, too.

[Craig]

Yeah. Speaking of other, like, great characters who are, you know, who are passing and make it like a story that makes that a really interesting and, like, integral part of a person's character. Yeah, that's. Yeah, that's a good part of Sinners too. Yeah, there's all the parts of Sinners are good, now that I'm thinking about it.

[Andrew]

Didn't expect this book to be as sinners as it is. Didn't expect Sinners to be as James as it is.

[Craig]

Getting real sinners vibes from this.

[Andrew]

Getting real 500 IQ, baby, from this. This movie.

[Craig]

I enjoyed this. This is fun. I. Then, listen, you could. If. If all you were going to do is say, I did a reimagining of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer is barely in it. Like, I'm already on board.

[Andrew]

Yeah, for sure.

[Craig]

But then you do a bunch of other interesting stuff and you're, like, a good writer and you're doing fun things with, like, structure and narrative. Yeah, like, I'm here for this.

[Andrew]

Okay, great. I'm glad that you dug it, and I hope the folks at home dug it as well. I don't know that I have anything else from the reviews that I had.

[Craig]

And my guitar is on the wall.

[Andrew]

So you bring up. I'll just share some other. Like in the New York Times review, which was a very glowing review by someone who, once again, my computer has Logged me out of the New York Times, so I can't. Let me just tell you, man, what's wrong with you?

[Craig]

You gotta get your cookies.

[Andrew]

My cookies settled.

[Craig]

What's wrong with your cookies?

[Andrew]

Cookies are all over the cookie monster. Eating up all my cookies.

[Craig]

Tossing your cookies over there.

[Andrew]

Dwight Garner, very, very positive review. Says that it should come bundled with Twain's novel. It is a tangled and subversive homage, a labor of rough love. He cites Everett's acknowledgments of Twain. He says his humor and humanity affected me long before I became a writer. Heaven for the climate. Hell for my long awaited lunch with Mark Twain. That is an amazing sentence. Kudos to Everett. And the review also just talks about other work by Everett. This is not the first work where he is like reimagined history or and like recontextualized a historical figure. Other works include I Am Not Sidney Poitier and A History of the African American People Proposed by Strom Thurmond As Told to Percival Everett and James Kincaid.

[Craig]

That's another one that, that I'm getting 500 IQ, baby.

[Andrew]

From like, that's know what's in there.

[Craig]

Yeah, like I read, I read the title of that and it's like, well, I can't just read the title of that. I guess now I need to know more.

[Andrew]

And overall the review says that this book, relative to the rest of his, relative to many of his other known works, is the. You've got all the hallmarks of an Everett novel, but the humanity is like turned up is the phrase.

[Craig]

I could, I could completely buy that this is one of the more accessible on ramps to this man's body of work.

[Andrew]

Yep. Yep.

[Craig]

Knowing nothing about him other than this book, what you told me about his career and the 500 IQ, baby, both.

[Andrew]

That it seems like, you know, obviously it's riffing on Huck Finn. You're gonna have an on ramp there. It also seems like he like cares about James as a character in ways that he maybe like, is interested in writing books where he doesn't have to care about characters that way. You know, Though he does say for most of his novels he winds up hating all the characters he creates by the end of it because he wants to be done writing it. So that's. Listen, that's fair identify a.

[Craig]

The only other thing, this is my.

[Andrew]

Closing last thing, closing thing is that.

[Craig]

Thing about, you know, having a dinner with Mark Twain in hell or whatever. Does remind me of a bit on Star Trek Lower Decks, okay. Where they come up with A method of conflict resolution where you go on the holodeck with the person who you're having an argument with and you both dress up as Mark Twain and you both have to talk like Mark Twain to each other as you talk out your conflict. And it just makes everybody really like, like Southern affable. And it really, it sets a good like, tone. I love fixing problems. I love that they call it Twaining.

[Andrew]

Woof. What? That's. That's good as a, as just a standalone gag and also good as a gag at the expense of other holodeck stuff. Stuff.

[Craig]

Yeah, yeah, sure. Because everybody likes to dress up goofy on the holodeck and like do accents and stuff.

[Andrew]

And then of course, like culturally, like, it would become a practice. Right? Like use of holodeck stuff would become part of society. That's so silly. Anyway, sounds like this was a cool book. Thanks for reading it, Andrew. I appreciate it.

[Craig]

It was fun. It was good to read it.

[Andrew]

If folks at home have thoughts on James, a little smash and you'll be James, send me an email. Overdue pod little slam and you'll be James. Excuse me. From some incorrect lyrics to a favorite.

[Craig]

Calling more attention is weird thing that you said.

[Andrew]

I didn't say it. It was from a Wikipedia.

[Craig]

You can't do a weird drive by reference to a thing that you have to go back and to the, to.

[Andrew]

The Grape Escape board game page.

[Craig]

Look it up guys Wiki yet that gets the lyrics wrong.

[Andrew]

Very strange. Anyway, little slamming. You'll be James, send me an email. Overdue podmail.com, just me. Tell me what you thought about this book or you can write it to Andrew. That's fine too. Hit us up on social media Verdupod. We're hanging out on Bluesky and Instagram. Thanks to Nicola, Jane, Lynn, Izzy, Aaron, Kate, Rebecca, James, Brad and more for reaching out recently. You can listen to our theme song which was composed by Nick Laurengis. Thank you, Nick. Andrew. If folks want to know more about the show, where do they go?

[Craig]

Overdue Podcast.com is the Internet destination. We have the books that we have read and the ones that we are going to read next week. Craig, you are doing what?

[Andrew]

Stone Butch Blues by Leslie Feinberg.

[Craig]

Nice. We also we have many links up there including to many of the things that Craig just mentioned. But one of the other links that we've got is one to our Patreon page, patreon.com overdue pod support the show financially, buy us equipment and books and hosting and all the other things that we need to make the show keep going. And in exchange, you get access to our Discord community, bonus episodes, streams, other things, our newsletter, dusty bookshelves. That's all. Yeah, that's what you get. Patreon.com averydupod There's a new episode.

[Andrew]

Our Last Babysitters Club Sit Me Baby One More Time episode is up for.

[Craig]

It'S about the 1995 Babysitter's Club movie.

[Andrew]

For Long Read supporters. If you want to check that out. Otherwise you're going to have to wait. And then we'll be starting up the sillymarillion pretty soon. Keep an eye out.

[Craig]

Yeah, I got my illustrated edition of it in the mail today.

[Andrew]

Keep the eye of Sauron out.

[Craig]

Yeah, like Sauron.

[Andrew]

Keep an eye out.

[Craig]

Never stop watching. Jesus. All right, everybody, thank you so much for listening to our podcast. And until we see you next time, please try to be happy. That was a headgum podcast.

[Andrew]

You're not. I don't. I don't think you're lying. It's like when I told my mom, she asked me if I'd done my homework and I said, yes, I'm not even lying. And she went, what?

[Craig]

That's not quite as bad as when my brother with his, like, chopped up hair walked up to my mom and said, nobody cut my hair after my sister had cut his hair. But it's pretty close.

[Andrew]

It was a real like. Wait, which times are you admitting to lying right now?

[Craig]

I know you're lying about something, but I don't understand. What about.