March SDARJ Book & Film Discussion
Founder, Dr. Aimee Wiest. Hosted at the Lewes Public Library
Please register to attend *either* In-Person or Online. You will receive a confirmation email within minutes of registering. If you do not receive an email from LibCal, check your spam filter. Or you call the library (302-645-2733) during business hours (M – Th from 10 AM to 2 PM, F from 10 AM to 5 PM, and Sat from 10 AM to 2 PM) and ask a staff person to check on your registration. DO NOT register again.
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March 25th will feature:
James: A Novel
by Percival Everett
Read the NPR article, “‘James’ reimagines Twain’s ‘Huckleberry Finn’ with mordant humor, and horror“
A brilliant reimagining of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—both harrowing and ferociously funny—told from the enslaved Jim’s point of view
When Jim overhears that he is about to be sold to a man in New Orleans, separated from his wife and daughter forever, he runs away until he can formulate a plan. Meanwhile, Huck has faked his own death to escape his violent father. As all readers of American literature know, thus begins the dangerous and transcendent journey by raft down the Mississippi River toward the elusive and unreliable promise of the Free States and beyond.
Brimming with the electrifying humor and lacerating observations that have made Everett a literary icon, this brilliant and tender novel radically illuminates Jim’s agency, intelligence, and compassion as never before. James is destined to be a major publishing event and a cornerstone of twenty-first-century American literature.
Source: Good Reads
About the Author - Percival Everett
Percival L. Everett (born 1956) is an American writer and Distinguished Professor of English at the University of Southern California.
There might not be a more fertile mind in American fiction today than Everett’s. In 22 years, he has written 19 books, including a farcical Western, a savage satire of the publishing industry, a children’s story spoofing counting books, retellings of the Greek myths of Medea and Dionysus, and a philosophical tract narrated by a four-year-old.
The Washington Post has called Everett “one of the most adventurously experimental of modern American novelists.” And according to The Boston Globe, “He’s literature’s NASCAR champion, going flat out, narrowly avoiding one seemingly inevitable crash only to steer straight for the next.”
Everett, who teaches courses in creative writing, American studies and critical theory, says he writes about what interests him, which explains his prolific output and the range of subjects he has tackled. He also describes himself as a demanding teacher who learns from his students as much as they learn from him.
Everett’s writing has earned him the PEN USA 2006 Literary Award (for his 2005 novel, Wounded), the Academy Award for Literature of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award (for his 2001 novel, Erasure), the PEN/Oakland-Josephine Miles Award for Excellence in Literature (for his 1996 story collection, Big Picture) and the New American Writing Award (for his 1990 novel, Zulus). He has served as a judge for, among others, the 1997 National Book Award for fiction and the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction in 1991.
Source: Good Reads
The books & films of the 2025 SDARJ Book & Film Series
View the books and films we’ve discussed in previous meetings.