Percival

The most glaring evidence was a now-notorious “summer reading list,” which recommended 15 books, five of them real, 10 of them imaginary, with summaries of fake titles like Isabel Allende’s Tidewater Dreams, Min Jin Lee’s Nightshade Market, Rebecca Makkai’s Boiling Point, and Percival Everett’s The Rainmakers.

After he died, his work lived on through his novels, and his influence has endured — this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, “James” by Percival Everett, reverses the roles of the main characters in Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” replacing the narration of the teenaged Huck with that of the slave Jim.

Terry Kennedy had just picked up his first fare of the day, 19-year-old Emma Percival, to take her for a doctor's appointment.

Jim, an enslaved Black man accompanying Huck in Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” becomes James, reader of John Locke and Voltaire, in Percival Everett’s majestic inversion of the classic.

Much like Lee Smith mentored Troy Percival decades ago, the Angels hope Kenley Jansen can teach hard-throwing reliever Ben Joyce a thing or two.