If You Like James…
James by Percival Everett (2024) is an acclaimed book, the recipient of the 2024 Kirkus Prize, the National Book Award for Fiction, and the 2025 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. I listened to it as an audiobook, narrated by Dominic Hoffman, and it totally lived up to the hype. The novel is a retelling of Mark Twain’s Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Jim.
I found Jim’s/James’s world engrossing. Little details stuck with me — the way he taught his children to speak in a dialect to white people different from how they spoke at home, the survival skills he utilized when on the run.
It led me to other books that take on the challenge of telling a story on the outskirts — or perhaps off-stage — of a well-known work. Below are some favorites, new and old, that I recommend to those who liked James.
Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966)
This retelling of Jane Eyre takes the perspective of the first wife of Mr. Rochester. Antoinette (later renamed Bertha) grows up on a sugar plantation in Jamaica. She is paired with Mr. Rochester in an arranged marriage, but he is an abusive and neglectful spouse. One of my favorite classes in college was The 19th-century Novel, which included Jane Eyre, and I enjoyed filling out more of the story with this book.
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead by Tom Stoppard (1967)
I am a big Tom Stoppard fan and was saddened by his death in November 2025. This absurdist play takes two minor characters from Hamlet and puts them center stage. Rosenccrantz and Guildenstern are childhood friends of Hamlet. Hamlet’s uncle, the king, ask them to discover what the mourning nephew is up to. Anyone familiar with Hamlet will enjoy the uncomfortable pleasure of knowing just how everyone is going to end up in this brilliant work.
March by Geraldine Brooks (2005)
A confession: the version of Little Women that I read as a kid was an ABRIDGED one, which I didn’t realize until I was an adult. But by reading this novel that follows the father of the March family to the Civil War made me feel like I had the full story. March is an idealist minister who believes strongly in abolition. Before joining the North as a chaplain, he and Marmee were active in the Underground Railroad. Through letters home and his reflections of his present and past, March shows all his conflicts and complications.
Longbourn by Jo Baker (2013)
Baker’s book tells Pride and Prejudice through the perspective of the servants of the Bennett household, especially the maid Sarah and the footman James. At first, Sarah is annoyed at James for not ignoring her. Then her eye is caught by a servant in the Bingley household: a Black man named Ptolemy. When Sarah is swept off her feet by his attention, James intervenes and a love begins to blossom between them. A much more somber book than Austen would have penned, the reader will still find romance, struggles, and simple joys here.
Stone Blind by Natalie Haynes (2022)
Haynes’ lyrical novel retells the myth of Perseus through the eyes of Medusa. She lives with her Gorgon sisters, a part of them and yet separate since she is mortal. When Medusa is attacked by Poseidon in Athene’s temple, the goddess takes revenge by transforming Medusa. Now able to turn anyone into stone with her gaze, she isolates herself to protect the family she loves.