Synopses & Reviews
A deeply moving recasting of one of the most controversial characters in American literature, Huckleberry Finn’s JimWritten in the great literary tradition of novels of American slavery, My Jim is told in the incantatory voice of Sadie Watson, an ex-slave who schools her granddaughter with lessons of love she learned in bondage. To help her granddaughter confront the decisions she needs to make, Sadie mines her memory for the tale of the unquenchable love of her life, Jim. Sadie’s Jim was an ambitious young slave and seer who, when faced with the prospect of being sold, escaped down the Mississippi with a white boy named Huck. Sadie is suddenly left alone. Worried about her children, convinced her husband is dead, reviled as a witch, and punished for Jim’s escape, Sadie’s will and her love for Jim, even in absentia, animate her life and see her through.
Told with spare eloquence and mirroring the true stories of countless slave women, My Jim re-creates one of the most controversial characters in American literature. A nuanced critique of the great American novel, My Jim stands on its own as a haunting and inspiring story about freedom, longing, and the remarkable endurance of love.
Review
"This book is a beautiful and powerful re-vision that teaches us to see with new eyes. I wholeheartedly recommend it." Sherman Alexie
Review
"The intimate and immediate nature of the narrative draws the reader quickly into Sadie's story of physical and emotional pain....[H]ighly recommended." Library Journal
Review
"It's always risky to build a narrative around someone else's characters, but second-novelist Rawles handles Twain's creations so deftly that it would be hard to imagine him objecting....Intensely sad but not mawkish: a very fine love story, wonderfully narrated with a perfect feel for the time and place." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Here, finally, is the Jim we can only glimpse between hijinks and humiliations in Huck Finn a man who's clever and tender, romantic and tragic. And there's just no escaping his wife's voice. I read some chapters without blinking. In her perfectly artless manner, Sadie moves through a love story that's horrible and harrowing, but somehow she arrives at an affirmation earned with her own blood." Ron Charles, The Christian Science Monitor (read the entire Christian Science Monitor review)
About the Author
Nancy Rawles is an award-winning novelist and playwright. Her novel Love Like Gumbo was the recipient of the American Book Award. She lives in Seattle.