Author Percival Everett, 66, Still Surprised by the Wild Popularity of ‘James’

Do you remember the first time you read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and what you thought?

I read it when I was 8 or 9. It was an abridged or maybe condensed version. And I have to say, it wasn’t my favorite Twain work. In many ways, it’s not a great novel … but the place that Huck Finn assumes on the literary landscape is important. I didn’t know that, of course, when I was 8 or 9, but as a teenager, when I read it — you can imagine that reading it as a Black teenager is problematic, that the story’s depiction of the slave as superstitious and simple-minded, that stereotypic rendering was a problem. But, even then, I recognized that it was an important American text because it was the first time we had a representation of someone who is enslaved instead of a representation of slavery itself.

You’ve said that the four funniest people you’ve known are your dad, Groucho Marx, Mark Twain and Bullwinkle the Moose. What made your father so funny?

Well, he was a punster, but they were good [puns]. I still remember one that pulled me into the fold of punning. My mother used to put newspaper on the floor in the kitchen near the back door, so by the time you got to the carpet, your feet would be dry during rainstorms. And my father was standing on the newspaper, and he looked at me and said, “These are the times that dry men’s souls.” And I thought that’s fantastic. So, playing with language is something I’ve always done.

What are you working on now?

I’m about halfway through a new novel. And I’m writing the screenplay for Steven Spielberg, and it’s amazing. I was hoping to work with someone a little more established, but I’ll take this. (Laughs.) And the director is a man I really like, Taika Waititi, who also made the film Jojo Rabbit.

There’s Mark Twain, but what other authors have influenced your writing over the years?

There are so many. Samuel Butler … My favorite novel is probably The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne, Chester Himes, Zora Neale Hurston. ... When I was a teenager. I read everything of Kurt Vonnegut’s, and Ishmael Reed — there are so many writers. Ann Petry. And I say those names sort of hesitantly because there are so many others to throw in there. But Vonnegut was the first author I latched on to and would wait for his books to come out. His sensibility really was in line with mine; I responded to [his] playfulness.

Is there another classic novel that you love?

I think of it as a classic: The Way of All Flesh by Samuel Butler. I love that novel, and there’s another novel that doesn’t get a lot of attention but is really fine — If He Hollers Let Him Go by Chester Himes.

If someone has just discovered you through James and would like to read more of your work, which book would you recommend they read next?

Oh, that’s like asking somebody, “Which child of yours do you like best?” It depends on the reader.

Erasure?

Sure, Erasure. Why not? Or Wounded, or Glyph.

What do you do for fun?

I started repairing instruments during COVID so I could work with my hands. Tennis is a big thing, reading, of course, and playing my instruments. I play guitar and mandolin and banjo.

Do you spend a lot of time with other writers?

I have a lot of friends who are artists and writers. But I also have teenage sons, and they write very well. And my wife, Danzy Senna, is a novelist. And the ironic part of all of this is I’m probably the least talented writer in this house. Really, I think so. I work hard at this, but they’re just naturals.