About this Event
Four days after the publication of Huckleberry Jim during Banned Books Week, author Adam Nelson comes to Hannibal, Missouri, for the official launch of his debut novel at the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum.
There could hardly be a more fitting place.
Set in 1991, Huckleberry Jim follows Axel Emerson, a 22-year-old white actor, and Moses Morton, a 55-year-old Black actor who has played Jim more than 2,800 times, as they tour a stripped-down, two-man production of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to schools across upstate New York and Appalachia.
Night after night, they perform words written in 1884 for children living in 1991, while outside the theater America is wrestling with Rodney King, Anita Hill, Desert Storm, David Duke, race, censorship and an increasingly bitter argument over what children should read, hear and be taught.
On October 10, that story comes home to Hannibal.
Join Adam Nelson at the Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum for a special conversation about Huckleberry Jim, Mark Twain, the true experiences that inspired the novel, and why the arguments surrounding Adventures of Huckleberry Finn remain so fiercely alive in America.
The evening will include a reading, conversation, audience Q&A and book signing.
Huckleberry Jim has been named a Publishers Weekly BookLife Editor’s Pick, was longlisted for The Masters Review Novel Excerpt Prize, and has been acquired by Blackstone Publishing for audiobook release.
Publishers Weekly BookLife called the novel:
“Adam Nelson’s incisive, provocative, and robustly American debut... honors the fathoms-deep American divisions that Twain marked and urges us to look closer rather than away.”
Saturday, October 10, 2026
Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum
Hannibal, Missouri
Free and open to the public.
Agenda
Agenda
Info: Conversation about Twain, Huckleberry Jim and the true story behind the novel, along with a reading, Q&A and signing.
Event venue & nearby stays
Mark Twain Boyhood Home & Museum, 120 N Main St, Hannibal, United States
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.