Notes & links: 'James' by Percival Everett

Photo by Tom Fisk

Thank you to everyone who joined our May 2025 conversation about James by Percival Everett. There was much to unpack, explore, and discuss about this novel, which was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction this month, and much to learn from each other's thoughts and experiences with it.

Everett was the commencement speaker at Wesleyan University on Sunday. You may like to read the transcript of his remarks. This is one snippet:

"If you want to understand a culture, you look at the art it produces. To understand the art, you don't look at the artists, you look at the audience. It is the audience, the readers, listeners, viewers who make all the meaning to be found in art. And art is more expansive in definition than one might think. Science is art. Mathematics is art. None of these practices grow and change without the same creativity that creates symphonies and jazz and sculpture and novels."

These are a few links and resources that came up for related exploration:

• Many interviews with Everett are available for listening. This is one with a local connection: His appearance at City Arts & Lectures in June 2024. 

• The 2023 film American Fiction, which won the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay, was based on Everett's novel Erasure.

• Daniel Decatur Emmett is a real person and often credited as the songwriter of Dixie. 

• Candide by Voltaire figures prominently in the novel. (A 1988 BBC telecast of Leonard Bernstein's operetta is on YouTube.)  

Our June Book

For next month, we continue with fiction. We will discuss The Secrets We Kept by Lara Prescott. a novel that features post-WWII spy craft, the story behind the writing and publication of Doctor Zhivago, and more.

When and Where

Sunday, June 22, from 11:15 a.m. to approx. 12:30 p.m.

Books Inc. Opera Plaza, 601 Van Ness, San Francisco

The team at Books Inc. Opera Plaza will be happy to order a copy of the novel for you. Just stop by, or call 415.776.1111. The store is open daily from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.