"Seattle Reads:" Huck Finn's adventure, Jim's ordeal

Nancy Rawles is not the first author to re-imagine a classic work of fiction from another perspective. But when the Seattle-based author tackled Mark Twain's iconic American work, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn," she answered centuries' worth of injustice with a keenly felt, deeply nuanced consideration of slavery and its terrible toll. Rawles' novel "My Jim" (Three Rivers Press, 190 pp., $12.95 paperback) is the story of Huck's trusty traveling companion, as told through the voice of Jim's enslaved wife, Sadie.

This spring "My Jim" is the focus of the 2009 Seattle Reads program, presented by the Washington Center for the Book at the Seattle Public Library. Programming includes author presentations, films, theater, panels, lectures, and book-group discussions.

Rawles, who also teaches grade school at the Seattle School District's New School, took time recently to talk about her work.

Q: Do you remember your first encounter with "Huckleberry Finn"?

A: My mother took us to the library every week, and I ran through all kinds of books, whatever struck my fancy. I think I looked up Twain because of a television adaptation I'd seen of "The Prince and The Pauper." I remember watching that and thinking, "This guy really gets what it's like to be poor and considered as having less value than someone with wealth and status."

I found Tom Sawyer kind of entertaining. Huck Finn baffled me. I didn't like the dialect Mark Twain used for Jim. I couldn't understand what he was saying. And I really couldn't understand why Jim was floating down the Mississippi in search of freedom, when everyone knew freedom meant heading north, not south.

Q: In Chapter 16 of that classic, Jim briefly mentions his dream of buying freedom for his family. What prompted you to develop relationships that were mere asides to Twain?

A: Things that might have been incidental to Huck were central to Jim. Freeing his wife and children would have been at the heart of his endeavor. There's another passage in Chapter 23, in which Jim talks about missing his children. Huck notices that Jim is often "moaning and mourning" at night when he's homesick for his family. These references add another dimension to Jim, who is mostly a caricature. Huck is struck by Jim's humanity. Jim is a loving father, while Huck's own father is brutal and ignorant.

Q: America's long participation in slavery had a profound impact on African-American families, which routinely were broken up as individuals were sold.

A: When I began writing "My Jim," I was teaching a class of fourth graders. I asked them what they thought was the most difficult part of being enslaved. At first they said being beaten and starved and forced to work so hard. But the tone really changed when one girl raised her hand and said "being taken away from your family." Everyone agreed. If you listen to the oral histories, you'll find this is also what the former slaves said.

Q: "My Jim" contemplates the very notion of possession — be that of a shard of pottery, or of a human being. What might readers learn from this?

A: Eventually, we will lose everything and everyone, so love well and pack light.

Q: Is your book an antidote to "Huckleberry Finn," which winds up on the American Library Association's list of challenged titles every year?

A: I view "My Jim" as a literary response to what many people find offensive about Huck Finn — the language and the repeated attempts to re-enslave Jim.

Q: Readers always bring their own special knowledge to what they read. Will the "My Jim" reading experience change now that an African-American president has been elected for the first time?

A: Perhaps, people will realize the enormous opportunities that are lost when individuals like Barack Obama are not allowed to rise.

Q: As the focus of the 2009 Seattle Reads program, "My Jim" will be getting a lot of scrutiny. What would you like to see come out of it?

A: I think slavery is a very important topic to read about and discuss for a number of reasons. We live with the legacy of centuries of slavery in the Americas. The founding fathers debated whether or not to end this cruel and inhumane practice while speaking of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. The horrors of slavery were enshrined in the Constitution and the culture of the United States. And millions of people are currently enslaved in India, China, Brazil, Estonia, Kuwait, Nigeria (to name just a few) so we're still being called to be abolitionists.

Mende Nazer (author of "Slave: My True Story") who was kidnapped from her village in Darfur and who lived for many years as a slave in Khartoum and London, is part of the 2009 Seattle Reads program. I find this quite remarkable.

If this inspires anyone to act on behalf of enslaved people or their descendants, it if leads people to open their hearts to those who suffer, I'll feel mighty good about that.

Barbara Lloyd McMichael is a writer and reviewer living in Burien. She reviewed "My Jim" for The Seattle Times in 2005.