Percival Everett, James ***

Let me start by admitting that I'm not a fan of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and recall very few of its plot points. I generally don't care for picaresque novels and didn't find the comic elements humorous.

James tells the same story from the point of view of the runaway slave Jim. The gimmick is that Jim is extremely well educated and merely plays the fool for the benefit of his white oppressors. The first few chapters show Jim teaching young black children "the correct incorrect grammar" for the "slave filter," and several plot developments involve white folks being confused when they hear a slave speak "proper" English.

It is not surprising that James focuses on language given that the vernacular is the most notable aspect of Twain's book and of Everett's earlier book Erasure (filmed as American Fiction). 

Everett leans too heavily on his themes. Not only can Jim read and write, he is inexplicably well educated. He has a dream in which he argues with Voltaire about natural versus civil liberties, and has visions of John Locke. When alone, the slaves have explicit conversations about their predicament. At the same time, Everett skims past the adventures, such as when Huck and Jim explore a house that comes floating down the river.

The story comes alive once it deviates from Huckleberry Finn. The ironic humor, the action, and the intensity all increase during the period when Huck and Jim are separated. When they are reunited, it is Jim who drives the action, not Huck. The final chapters are completely different in both incident and tone: Huckleberry Finn ends with controversial chapters that "devolve into little more than minstrel-show satire and broad comedy" (says Ernest Hemingway); James ends with violence and righteous anger.

Tyler Mahan Coe, Cocaine & Rhinestones ****

Cocaine & Rhinestones is a podcast about the history of country music. This book, adapted from its second season, centers on the tragic stories of George Jones and Tammy Wynette. Or, rather, it uses their story as the main through-line for a wide-ranging exploration of country music and beyond. 

I enjoyed Coe's discursive style and was especially impressed with his insights into the art and business of country music: the meaning and development of "the Nashville Sound," the marketing of recordings in the era of regional distribution, the changing role of producers, the importance of artists' personas, the line between country and pop.

Many fans believe that the "& Western" part of the genre Country & Western is a reference to western swing. It's not. It's a reference to western music, or at least Hollywood's version of western music, performed by singing actors in Western movies, a.k.a. "horse operas," the biggest of which were given exponentially larger marketing budgets than the entire country music division of any record label at the time.

I appreciated Coe's firm convictions about the quality of the songs and his willingness to call bullshit on significant parts of the official narrative.

I was mostly fine with the totally tangential interpolations about pinball machines, bullfighting, the age of chivalry, and so on. Coe generally brought an interesting perspective to the subjects, and they provided a break from the relentless misery of George and Tammy's lives.

I found a 500+ track Spotify playlist that provided easy access to the referenced music. My favorite discoveries were not tracks from George or Tammy. Cocaine & Rhinestones is the second music book I've loved in the past month despite not being a huge fan of the artists in focus. I would have liked the book to have photos – of Nudie suits, for example, or of Jones' evolving haircuts – but I suppose podcasts don't have photos either.

By the way, the proper pronunciation of "Wynette" is win-net not why-net.