Editorial Content for Huck Finn's America: Mark Twain and the Era That Shaped His Masterpiece

Dick Cavett was recently interviewed for “By the Book,” a regular New York Times Book Review feature in which well-known celebrities  answer questions about their reading likes, dislikes and habits. When asked “What’s your favorite book of all time?” Cavett replied, “Easy, HUCKLEBERRY FINN, need I name the author?” Mark Twain’s novel about a young boy and a runaway slave escaping down the Mississippi River is the most frequently read American classic in schools across the nation. Nearly every list of influential American novels includes it, and its influence is recognized in Ernest Hemingway’s quote that “all modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain, HUCKLEBERRY FINN.”

"Levy’s work is thoughtful and provocative, and offers a different perspective on a classic work of American literature. Any book that accomplishes this is certainly worth reading."

HUCK FINN’S AMERICA offers a fresh and provocative new interpretation of the book. Andrew Levy’s argument is that most students and critics miss one of its important themes. In addition to focusing on the story as a childhood adventure novel or as a serious tome about race relations, Levy adds to the mix the theme that the book is a dark comedy about how history repeats itself. He comes to this conclusion after 20 years of research into Mark Twain’s life and the events during the time when the story was written. His literary criticism is as much a historical look at the era when HUCKLEBERRY FINN was published as it is a discussion of the novel itself.

Published in America in 1885, HUCKLEBERRY FINN was Twain’s sequel to TOM SAWYER. The book has always been controversial, with libraries banning it from shelves because of coarse language and debating whether it’s racist or anti-racist. Senator Joe McCarthy called for the book’s banning in 1949, because he believed it did substantial harm to the reputation of the South. In Levy’s view, Twain was not writing to disparage the South or to condemn the evils of slavery. His point was deeper; he was writing in the years after the Civil War, surveying all the cost in human life and treasure.

Although the war was fought to end slavery, it had not fully succeeded. The collapse of Reconstruction, the rise of Jim Crow, the Klan, lynching and prison farms made Twain question if a new birth of freedom in America had been accomplished. He dedicated HUCKLEBERRY FINN to the proposition that it had not. Sadly, taking a look at current news, Twain’s observations of life from more than a century later still ring true.

During Levy’s research for HUCK FINN’S AMERICA, he read many contemporary news accounts of Twain’s travels across America introducing his novel to the nation. Levy realized that many of the issues Twain spoke about in the 1880s are still debated today. The size of the national debt, immigration, racial inequality and public education were all debated in the newspapers that also covered Twain’s appearances across the nation. Although the newspaper no longer serves as the prime vehicle for discussing those issues, they remain prominent in national debate. Levy says that if he were to design a course to teach HUCKLEBERRY FINN in classrooms today, he would encourage students to read as many old newspapers as possible to see firsthand how history is repeating itself just as Twain said it would.

I will confess to a certain amount of skepticism in reading HUCK FINN’S AMERICA. After all, the novel and its author have been under a microscope for more than a century. But Mark Twain is our nation’s Shakespeare, and new interpretations of the Bard’s writings appear on a regular basis. Levy’s work is thoughtful and provocative, and offers a different perspective on a classic work of American literature. Any book that accomplishes this is certainly worth reading.