BRILLANT
Published 2024 by Doublebday
Soundtrack: Freedom – Beyoncé feat. Kendrick Lamar
With its brilliant , heart-wrenching retelling that perhaps surpasses the original’s impact, 𝘑𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘴 is a literary masterpiece that will leave you shocked and disheartened but ultimately hopeful for the possibility of freedom.
From the moment we begin this tale of an ill-fated journey down the Mississippi featuring James and his steadfast companion Huck, we are brought into a life filled with fear, justified distrust, and pain. Yet, there is also love, untapped potential, and inflexible determination to live free.
Everette’s narrative not only takes us on an epic journey but also delves deep into the power of language and identity. He offers a thought-provoking exploration of how attitudes rooted in slavery harm Blacks, keeping readers engaged as we seek James’ fate.
What are we without a name? The erasure of enslaved persons’ identity was central to the institution’s cruelty. James has diminished into Jim, the enslaved person. Through Everett’s fantastic prose, we see the whites’ refusal to see enslaved people as humans and their repeated unwillingness to remember their individuality. Everett empowers James through his ability to claim his name and then through his chance to literally and figuratively write his own story.
I admired the complexity of the dialogue, the code-switching between “slave talk” and more standard English. The enslaved’s use of language as a rebellion against their captors added so much richness and depth to this novel.
There is a lot of injustice in 𝘑𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘴. As Everett reminds the reader frequently, there is no such thing as a good master, and the institution of slavery is one of the most egregious parts of American history. It is difficult to read these scenes because they so accurately depict the cruelty and discrimination that perpetuated everyday life. I appreciated how we experienced James’s fear, mistreatment, and erasure firsthand, a glimpse into the despair that dominated people’s lives for almost 250 years in the Americas.
𝘑𝘢𝘮𝘦𝘴 is a beautifully compelling must-read novel for lovers of historical and literary fiction alike.