James by Percival Everett

James by Percival Everett is firing on all cylinders. A retelling of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, James tells the story from the perspective of Jim, the runaway slave. Everett gives us a whole new perspective on Jim. When Jim is with other slaves, he speaks "correct English". When he (and the other slaves) are around white people, including Huck, he speakes "slave language" so that white people will think they're stupid. Slave language is what we get from him in the original, because that was told from Huck's perspective and he only heard the slave language.

This is just the beginning of the story. The things this book says about black culture at the time and there are things that still carry over to today. James is fascinating and uncomfortable and beautiful.