UNFORGETTABLE READS

These new releases all offer something surprising and unexpected

- JANE VORSTER

JAMES

By PERCIVAL EVERETT Mantle

Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was first published in 1884 and recounted the escapades of a young Southern boy in America who flees his vicious drunk of a father.

He's accompanied by Jim, a runaway slave, who makes the agonising decision to leave his family behind when he discovers he's about to be sold, and the pair embark on a perilous journey down the Mississippi river in search of safety and freedom.

Now, 140 years later, Jim gets to tell his own story and what a story it is! Along the way the two adventurers encounter a ragtag assortment of conmen, musical players and brutal "massas" Early on we discover that the folksy patois spoken by slaves is in fact an elaborate ruse to reassure the white man of his supremacy over his downtrodden subjects. Jim is in fact a thoughtful, well-spoken intellectual whose dream is to write his own story and while away his days reading.

We watch Jim's transformation into "James", one that takes him from resignation and terror to white-hot rage.