Takeaway: Smart, incisive road-trip through Twain’s classic and 1991 America.
Even though the novel takes place more than three decades ago, on the eve of the Rodney King riots, its debates about bigotry match today’s: the use of racial slurs in art, pervasive antisemitism, and ignorance as a denial tactic, to name a few. Considering the frequent bans of Huckleberry Finn, from the right and the left, since its first publication and Trump-era elimination of Black history education in many US school curricula, Huckleberry Jim feels especially well-timed—but, sadly, wouldn’t it always? Nelson honors the fathoms-deep American divisions that Twain marked and urges us to look closer rather than away.