My Jim: A Novel

by Nancy Rawles

To help her granddaughter accept the risks of loving, Sadie Watson 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 Finn. Sadie is suddenly left alone, worried about her children, reviled as a witch, punished for Jim’s escape, and convinced her husband is dead. But Sadie’s will and her love for Jim animate her life and see her through.Told with spare eloquence and mirroring the true stories of countless slave women, My Jim recreates one of the most controversial characters in American literature. A nuanced critique of the great American novel, My Jim is a haunting and inspiring story about freedom, longing, and the remarkable endurance of love.Look for the Reader’s Group Guide at the back of this book.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Book Club, African American, Adult, Adult Fiction, Young Adult

Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Abby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite the title, this book isn't really about Jim (the runaway slave from Mark Twain's classic, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn). The narrator, Sadie Watson, is Jim's wife, and while she recounts the story of their courtship, marriage, and separation, the book is really about the inhumanity of slavery and its cruel impact on black American families before, during, and after the Civil War.

While I applaud Rawles' effort to place Jim and Sadie's stories in a broader, more historically accurate context and her ability to fully humanize them (something Twain could not, although his portrait of Jim is more nuanced and positive than some critics may believe), I didn't find this book as compelling or well-written as other novels that portray slavery from the slave's perspective. "Beloved," "Kindred" and "The Known World" are all, in my opinion, superior works of fiction. Go read them first if you haven't already.

[Tucker FitzGerald · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is such a brutal, grinding portrayal of American slavery. Nothing in tone or plot connected it to The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn for me (it's framed as a prequel), other than it was a very contemporary and lucid look at slavery.

I came to this book equating American slavery with hard work in the hot sun accompanied by whippings. I left equating American slavery with the systemic rape of women and children, violent theft of small children from their mothers, routine murder, and white men so filled with racist rage that they would abandon their own sons and daughters to the same incomprehensible horrors.

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Here is a way to destroy your faith in humanity...first read a book about WWII and the Nazi occupation, and then read one about slavery in the U.S. Nice.

This was a beautifully written book accounting the life of the wife of Huckleberry Finn's Jim. The writing style is as if her slightly educated granddaughter is writing the novel, so it takes a bit of getting used to (very little punctuation, misspelled words, slang, etc.) but it really pulls you into the time period. I guess even though it is hard to read, the lesson from both books is that love lives on, humanity survives, goodness can be found even in the darkest of times and places, the wheel keeps turning, which are always good things to be reminded.

[Ellen · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is actually about Jim's wife, Sadie. It is written such that it felt as though Sadie was telling me her life story while in slavery and then during Reconstruction. It is full of struggles, sadness and disappointments, but the voice of Sadie offers dignity and hope for future generations.

[Lisa M · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rounded up from 3.5

[Larry Abrams]

Incredibly satisfying book! This is a must-read for those who love The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and for people interested in learning about the horrors inflicted upon American slaves. I put it in a league with Twelve Years a Slave, a book that I think was better than the movie!

[Star Gater · Rating 4 out of 5]

Narration was amazing.

Tough listen. The cruelty faced, what one human being will do to another.

For mature readers.

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I saw this book being the Seattle Reads selection and got it from my local library to read. It's a very honest story about survival and the power of love. Sadie, the narrator of the book, has some very simple things from her history that she managed to hold on to that she uses to tell her granddaughter her experiences in trying to help her with a difficult decision. It's powerful how the author uses something as simple as a piece of a wooden bowl to not only carry so much history but also give Sadie the will to keep going when faced with such horrifying experiences. Despite the title's reference to Jim, the character in Mark Twain's Huck Finn who becomes Sadie's husband, the book to me is more about Sadie. It's her voice that carries us through the book but it's the bond she has with Jim that helps carries her through everything life throws at her. Near the end of the book Sadie says "Only ones free the spirits", very powerful words for all of us.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jim of the title is based on the character of Jim from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. My Jim is actually the life story of Jim’s wife Sadie, as told to her granddaughter in the early post-slavery years. As both a reader and an aspiring writer, I gained a great deal of respect and admiration for Nancy Rawles as I read her beautifully crafted and meticulously researched third novel. I was reminded of the great power of historical fiction as I cried through the last 15 pages of the book. It really rekindled my love of this genre. I was wow-ed as well by Rawles’ pages long acknowledgements section, in which she thanks the “spirits, angels, scholars, and artists” who helped her to write My Jim.
I can't wait for the opportunity to meet her May 20-23 during the 2009 Seattle Reads events.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this as part of 'Seattle Reads' sponsored by the public library. The book is narrative with the accent of the story-teller strongly presented. This may put some off, I found the effect a little distracting until I adjusted to it.

The story line is great. What happened to those whom Jim loved when he lit out with Huck? What is their story?

What is the story of sundered love and deep loss for a people as experienced through the eyes of a young woman who lives the massive change that takes place from a chilhood of brutal slavery to a granddaughters freedom.

How does wisdom derive from pain? How is love lasting in torment?

I think this book is an excellent complement to Huck and Tom because it is a story that you can feel without a pretense of being a "Classic".

Bravely written and strongly evocative.

[Bookmarks Magazine]

Although Mark Twain never mentioned Jim's wife by name in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, award-winning playwright and novelist Rawles gives Sadie a tale "as heart-wrenching a personal history as any recorded in American literature" (New York Times). Here, the subtext of slavery that lingers behind Twain's classic is given full due, and it is appalling in its near unspeakable details about slave life. Critics were universally moved by Sadie's short story, and praise the author's pitch-perfect tribute to Twain's original Jim. It makes a great supplement to high school reading lists.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Kristin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Writing: 3
Story: 3
Satisfaction: 2

Maybe not the best book to pick up after The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. With the world immersive dialogue of Mark Twain still lingering, Rawles's My Jim feels inauthentic and almost sterile in comparison. Knowing that her dialogue was going to be compared to that of Twain, I can't help but wonder why Rawles chooses to have her characters speak is a less slang heavy way.

My Jim is conceptually interesting but it honestly could have been about any other individual during this time period and I feel like having it tied to Huck Finn's Jim was almost a cheat for the author in that they hinted and mentioned but didn't really bother to flesh out the connecting ties.

Oh well.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow! This book is written in a prose that aims to take its reader back to the days just after slavery. It is beautiful and without even knowing it found myself near tears at the lushness and heartbreak that the author invokes in the telling of a love story that is wrapped in a slave narrative.

It is the untold story of Jim the charater from Huckleberry Finn. While in that book Jim seems only there to serve the interests and world view of Huck, this book brings Jim (and the wife and family that are ripped from him) into full and aching relief.

Wonderful, fast reading and tender in its understanding of loss, love and how history play a role in it all!

[Paige · Rating 5 out of 5]

All in all, pretty great.

This book is short (161 pages), and I think it's well worth the read.

I found it annoying that almost all the blurbs in the cover refer to Mark Twain and Huckleberry Finn. I suppose Ms. Rawles was inviting these kinds of comparisons herself. However, the connection is tenuous and not really fleshed out, and I think the book is all the better for it. If the narrator hadn't spelled it out that the Jim that Sadie talks about is the same Jim that travels with Huck, you wouldn't really know it. I enjoyed(?) this book more than I did Huckleberry Finn; to me it was a more compelling and interesting read.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Should be required reading alongside Huck Finn.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

A truly remarkable accomplishment. A voice-filled, compelling, female look at the Twain classics.

[Monica Caldicott]

In Mark Twain's story, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, we meet Huckleberry Finn and another, main character. Who is the second main character in the classic adventure story along the Mississippi River?

The escaped slave Jim. If all you knew of Jim was what Huck Finn said about him, you wouldn't know much. You'd know Jim belonged to Miss Watson, the niece of Widow Douglas who tries to civilize Huck (with little success). You'd know that Jim overhears Miss Watson saying that she is going to sell Jim, and then Jim finishes his own story by telling Huck that he ran away so as not to be separated from his wife and children.

But what of those wife and children? Do we know their names? Do we know their stories? Do we really know Jim, or do we just see him through the eyes of Huck, a white boy?

Author Nancy Rawles set out to tell the full story of Jim. But along the way, Jim's story turned into the story of his wife, Sadie, just as Rawles believes Jim's story turned into Hucks story under the pen of Mark Twain. In an author interview at the back of the book, she says, "I believe Mark Twain wanted to make his story primarily about Jim but didn't feel he could get away with it. So he wrote the adventures of Huck and Jim, two side-by-side stories of vulnerable and brutalized people escaping a world of main-made violence and cruelty."

While reading My Jim, the reader really sees his life, born a slave, worked as a slave, finally freed at the death of his owner, Miss Watson. We also meet Sadie, the slave who will one day become his wife. She is sewing a quilt for her grand-daughter, and with each piece, with each button, with each artifact of a long life, Sadie takes us on a story-telling adventure, just as treacherous and just as exhilarating as Huck and Jim's float down the Mississippi.

[Angel **Book Junkie** · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nancy Rawles’ My Jim offers a haunting reimagining of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn through the voice of Sadie, Jim’s wife. By shifting the perspective, Rawles brings forward the silenced stories of enslaved people, highlighting the brutality, loss, and resilience that defined their lives.

The novel powerfully conveys the horror endured by slaves—their families torn apart, their humanity denied, and their voices suppressed. Rawles does not shy away from the pain, and in doing so, she forces the reader to confront the realities that Twain’s original narrative left in the margins. This is where the book shines: it gives dignity and depth to Jim and to those whose suffering was too often overlooked.

That said, while the subject matter is compelling, the storytelling sometimes feels uneven. The fragmented style and shifts in voice can make the narrative difficult to follow, and at times the emotional weight overshadows the flow of the plot. For me, this kept the book from reaching its full potential.

Overall, My Jim is a courageous and important work that illuminates the horrors of slavery and the strength of those who endured it. It’s a book worth reading for its perspective, even if the execution doesn’t always match the power of its subject.

[Wendy Jensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Be ready to be uncomfortable as you climb into the skin of a slave living in Louisiana in the 1880's. It slowly becomes clear that the narrator, Sadie, is sharing the story of her life with her granddaughter. Recounting memories evoked by small precious items saved from her past, such as a piece of cloth cut from a favorite hat, or a baby tooth, Sadie shares her stories. Her words searingly illuminate what life was like as a person with no agency in her own life. When to get pregnant, where to care for the child, whether to raise the child herself or not, whether to work when sick or not, where to live and with whom, what to eat and when, whether to have sexual relations, all decisions were made by other people. This stopped me in my tracks. Thank you Nancy for your work honoring one woman's tenacity and strength of spirit in the face of unbelievable odds. Though the characters were fictional (Jim is Mark Twain's character Huckleberry Finn's friend), Nancy's research brought the life of a slave to light by mirroring stories dictated by real people. May we never travel this path again!

[Ron Charles · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" started offending people even before it was released. At the printer, somebody noticed that in one illustration, Silas Phelps is exposing himself to Huck. That near disaster was expensively corrected, but all the cutting and pasting weren't enough to save the novel from condemnation. The Concord Library in Massachusetts immediately banned it, and it's been banned in some places - often in many places - ever since.

The original objections to this "veriest trash" focused on Huck's naughty behavior and speech: He lies, he steals, he says "sweat" instead of "perspiration." But the debate shifted to more substantive ground in 1954 when the NAACP objected to the novel's racial slurs and demeaning stereotypes. A number of thoughtful black critics and parents have elaborated on that charge over the years.

In 1996, the arguments flared up again when Jane Smiley wrote an essay in Harper's complaining about the racist elements of "Huck Finn" and the way it's presented in schools. At the time, I happened to be teaching "Huck Finn" at Smiley's old high school, so I read her essay with considerable interest (but no personal offense - I joined the faculty many years after she had graduated.)

"My Jim," by Nancy Rawles, a black writer in Seattle, should stir the embers of this critical debate yet again. Her new novel stems from a crucial passage in Twain's masterpiece when Jim says he plans to buy or steal his family from slavery. For Huck, such shocking talk leads to a moral revelation about the value of his friend; for Rawles, it led to her own moving story about Jim's wife.

This sort of thread-pulling has been put to effective use before. Jean Rhys rescued Bertha from the background of "Jane Eyre" with "Wide Sargasso Sea." In "Jack Maggs," Peter Carey fleshed out a reference to Pip's dad from "Great Expectations." And Sena Jeter Naslund spun a counter epic about Ahab's wife from a line in "Moby Dick." Potential readers may worry that the alloyed nature of such books gives them an academic tone, but these are immensely satisfying novels, and "My Jim" is a fine addition.

Based on research that took Rawles into practices of American slavery and stories of freed slaves, "My Jim" comes to us in the shape of a personal testimony recorded in 1884 (the same year "Huck Finn" went on sale). Sadie Watkins is an old woman when her granddaughter comes to her with the exciting but scary news that someone has asked to marry her. "What you waiting for then?" she asks the girl. "Dont worry bout me."

For the next 12 days, while the two of them sew a quilt for the girl to take into her new home, Sadie recalls the trials of slavery and the disappointments of Reconstruction. In the rich tradition of such quilts, the pattern is inscribed with "something for the healing," symbolic references to her past. It's also embedded with humble objects of particular significance: a knife, a tooth, a shard of pottery. "Gonna put something of myself in there too," Sadie says. "Long as you got something of love to hold onto you know you a person of worth."

Sadie can remember when, as a little girl, she assisted with Jim's birth. From that moment, she felt connected to him, but Jim's mother tried to kill him soon afterward and then killed herself. That gory beginning gave Jim an aura of second sight that impressed blacks and whites alike and raised his status above other slaves. Young Miss Watson (the woman who tries to adopt Huck in Twain's story) considered him her special pet.

With nursing skills learned from her own mother, Sadie attracts special attention, too, but she must always work under the danger of a white patient raping her or dying under her care. A successful healing practice eventually stirs up resentments and rumors of her occult power.

Before he runs off with Huck, Jim and Sadie have only brief periods together - and never without the threat of deadly punishment. The plantation structure makes no allowances for marriage, paternal responsibility, or any entanglement that might inhibit an owner's convenience.

They hear rumors of Harriet Tubman's dangerous work and the legal case of some slave foolish enough to think the Supreme Court would help, but their own concerns are more basic and existential. They must decide every hour of every day whether and how to resist whatever new outrage springs from a white man's mind.

Sadie has a particularly wry take on the Christian salvation that her owners offer "on the other side." Bliss is easier for her to fathom right here. "I just wants to lay my head down on Jim's chest and never gets up," she says. "Nobody to bother us. Thats my heaven."

In a few scenes of heartbreaking poignancy, Jim manages to create that little arena of peace and comfort for them. It's not much, of course, but it's enough to convince Sadie that such love is real and the only salvation this earth has to offer. "When he leave he take all the light with him," Sadie tells her granddaughter. "But every time I thinks on him the light come back.... Everybody who love come back."

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. When the little objects she's sewing into her granddaughter's quilt show up in the tapestry of this tale, they illuminate what matters most to us, who have been tested so lightly in comparison.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0118/p1...

[Diane Adams · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me a while to choose this book to read. It sat on my book shelves for a couple years. Maybe because I now live across the River from Hannibal, it seemed like no better time than now. Once I started to read it wasn’t easy, even though it was very well written. It was so painful to read the harsh stories , chapter after chapter, of the cruelties done to black humans. But what kept me going were the descriptions of what must surely be how these abused slaves found ways to survive in spite of such immense cruelties. My heart aches for the story of Jim and Sadie’s love and how they never lost their love that carried them both through the tragedies of both their lives.

[Marya · Rating 3 out of 5]

The language is lyrical, the story is brutally sad. Here is one woman telling one tale, but clearly standing in for so many others. I read this following James by Percival Everett, expecting to get the same experience of two authors across time having a conversation. That is not the case. The book is about Sadie, Jim's wife, a character that Twain never even bothers to name. Rawles isn't speaking directly at or with Twain. Rather, she is filling in all those silences he left behind. There's only one paragraph on the character of Huck Finn here, but Rawles milks it for all its worth. Like the rest of the book, Rawles' sparse, quiet language still manages to say so much.

[Wadiyah Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book is powerful, the charactersare engaging, fully developed and determined to create place and space for themselves. It is strangely reminiscent of my family's journey and what's happenning in this administration's quest to erase us and put us back in "our place" without legal protections, so this government can legally disempower our struggles - past, present and future.
Thank you for creating this story and adding the power of the quilt to keep the characters' history alive for their future generations.

[Ana Sierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nancy Rawles, a history teacher + Hedgebrook writer, is this century’s Mark Twain, but improved. Nancy writes with a depth, knowledge, poetic parsimony and sensibility that is so profound and embodied that she makes her readers believe that she time travelled to 19th century Missouri. The characters were so alive and present for me that it was not easy to say goodbye. My Jim is among my most memorable and best reads of historical fiction. I can’t wait to read her next novel.

[Loocuh Frayshure · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like an inbetween of Beloved and Marlon James’s The Book of Night Women, this is written in amazing prose that echoes what Cormac McCarthy would be doing in The Road and whatnot, only in the vernacular of an enslaved woman of the latter half of the 1800s. It’s a little fast at 160 pages making some scenes lose their weight as they fly by, but it’s a great read overall and should absolutely be read ASAP if you read Huck Finn.

[Xavier University Library · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compelling narrative which revisits the life of Jim in Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn told from his wife's perspective. Only small keepsakes remain from a life in slavery but they reveal a family history that Sadie’s granddaughter is told about as the pieces come together in a quilt to take her away from the troubles of the American South. Sad, powerful, inspiring.

[Linda Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gripping and achingly sad, because of its truth. The characters are invented and the story is woven into that of Huckleberry Finn. The torment and cruelty used against the enslaved people is based on the author’s extensive research. On top of that, it’s a sweet love story - altogether well worth reading.

[Jessica Biggs · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tried to read this book, but as authentic as the author was trying to make it like a memoir, I did not like the narrative. Quit 25% in, so I can’t comment on the story. The story could be higher than 3 stars

[Nathalie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Helped me understand the horror of slavery and the impact it has on generations after.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this, was reminiscent of the book "the wind done gone". A different side/more important side to a classic story. Highly suggest, quick read.