Writer Percival Everett hails from South Carolina and lives in California, but it’s Martha’s Vineyard, he said, that provides the peace and quiet he needs when he sits down to write. Throughout his career Everett has published dozens of acclaimed novels including I Am Not Sidney Poitier (Graywolf Press, 2009), Erasure (Graywolf Press, 2011), Telephone (Graywolf Press, 2020), and The Trees (Graywolf Press, 2021). His latest New York Times bestselling novel James (Doubleday, 2024) has racked up many accolades, recently winning the 2025 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction, the 2024 National Book Award for Fiction, and the 2024 Kirkus Prize for Fiction.
A distinguished professor of English at the University of Southern California, Everett is known for his mastery of genres in his various books, as well as his essays and poetry. Martha’s Vineyard Magazine caught up with him to talk about his writing career, his time spent on the Island, and the success of James. An edited transcript follows.
Martha’s Vineyard Magazine: Congratulations are in order! Your novel, James – a reimagining of Mark Twain’s 1884 novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of enslaved Jim, Huck’s friend – has won numerous literary awards. How does it feel?
Percival Everett: Well, it feels nice to win an award. I don’t attach a lot of importance to it. It’s certainly nice to be included in the conversation of what people think are good books, but it doesn’t make the book any different or any better or any worse. But it feels good. It would feel good to win an award every week.
MVM: Let’s talk a little bit about James. How many times did you read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn before you started to write the novel?
PE: I read it fifteen times in a row.
MVM: Did you pick up new things each time you read it?
PE: No, I was trying to make myself sick of it – and I did. And when I closed it, that’s when I started the novel and never looked back. I just wanted to inhabit that world.
MVM: People have said that readers get more of an understanding of the characters from reading Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer first. On a similar note, The New York Times wrote that James is the rarest of exceptions, and that it should come bundled with Huckleberry Finn. Do you think there is an ideal order to reading these three books?
PE: There’s no necessary order to reading them. I don’t see the connection to Tom Sawyer at all, but if other people do then I guess it’s there. It’s nice to know that people might read Huck Finn with James, but it’s not necessary to read it with James. But I like it when people read more, so I think reading Huck Finn is a good thing, even if they don’t read James.
MVM: The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is famous for being banned in schools, by local governments, and in libraries around the world. You’ve said you would be excited if James got banned. Can you elaborate on that?
PE: I think I was misquoted. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was banned. One thing you can be sure of is that the people who ban books don’t read books. Huck Finn gets banned for the most ridiculous reasons. I think books should be available to everyone all the time. I think the elements being banned in books makes books more interesting to the people who read.
MVM: Could you share with us a book that made you want to become a writer?
PE: I think so much of what I read when I was young. I never thought about writing books, but the seeds were planted early on. I can’t think of one particular book.... There are books that I read and love, but the books that I love probably did more to discourage me.
MVM: Why do you say they did more to discourage you?
PE: I would read them and think, “They are so wonderful, I could never make that.”
MVM: You’ve mentioned before that Twain influenced the sense of irony in your writing, and that you wrote from the perspective of Jim because Twain couldn’t have in 1884. Are there any other characters from famous novels you would like to write the narrative for?
PE: No, it’s not the sort of book I thought of making, not rewriting a story. [There are] only so many stories we have. Every story is unique, but it certainly has a lot of shadows and works. How many love stories are there? Countless. It’s a little like music with only twelve notes in a scale but infinite things you can do with them when you write music.
MVM: I’m glad you brought up music. During the pandemic, you picked up a new hobby: refurbishing and repairing guitars by watching videos on YouTube. Did you know how to play guitar prior to that? Do you still play?
PE: I play guitar. I used to be a guitarist, but now I’m a guy who knows how to play guitar. I like working with my hands.
MVM: Speaking of using your hands – when you write, do you type on a computer?
PE: Oh, no. I write everything by hand first, then enter it on a computer.
MVM: What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received?
PE: Stop before somebody gets hurt.
MVM: Feature film rights for James were acquired last year by Universal Pictures, with Steven Spielberg as the executive producer. Can you give us any intel on this?
PE: We’re going to try to make a movie (laughs). That’s all I can say now.
MVM: You told the Vineyard Gazette in an interview last year that you like being comfortable to write, and that the Island is a comfortable place to be. What makes you so at ease on Martha’s Vineyard?
PE: My family likes it, so that helps. And, generally, it’s a beautiful, quiet place, and it’s hard to complain about that.
MVM: What do you like to do on the Island when you aren’t writing?
PE: Walk. Watch my boys at the beach. But mostly I read and write and nobody bothers me.
