My Jim

A spare and beautiful meditation on love and longing,My Jimholds an unrelenting gaze on the life and world of Sadie, the wife of Jim from Mark TwainsAdventures of Huckleberry Finn.

Rawles covers territory Twain did not. . . . As heart-wrenching a personal history as any recorded in American literature.The New York Times Book Review

Written in the great literary tradition of novels likeSula,My Jimconsiders the historically important questionWhat happened to those enslaved persons who didnt escape?by investigating the fictional world of Sadie Watson, a formerly enslaved woman. In her old age, she narrates a tale pieced together from her life born in slavery as a means to help her granddaughter decide on whether to marry her love and move away.

As Sadie tells her granddaughter her love story, she paints a beautiful and complex portrait of her Jima gifted seer, a man of wit and charisma. When faced with the prospect of being sold, Jim escapes down the Mississippi with a white boy named Huck Finn. Reviled as a witch, punished for Jims escape, and convinced he has died, Sadie must rely on her own will, the objects she has carried from her past, and her love for Jim to animate her life and see her through.

A nuanced critique of the great American novel that mirrors the true story of countless enslaved women,My Jimis a haunting and inspiring story about inheritance, longing, and the liberating power of Black love in a world that did everything to extinguish it.

Nancy Rawlesis an award-winning novelist and playwright. Her novelLove Like Gumbowas the recipient of the American Book Award. She lives in Seattle.

• Publisher: One World
• Publish Date: January 24, 2006
• Pages: 176
• Language: English
• Type: Paperback
• EAN/UPC: 9781400054015
• Dimensions: 8.0 X 5.2 X 0.5 inches | 0.3 pounds
• BISAC Categories: Literary Fiction, Popular Fiction