Status
Call number
Collections
Publication
Description
On December 3, 1976, just before the Jamaican general election and two days before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert, gunmen stormed his house, machine guns blazing. The attack nearly killed the Reggae superstar, his wife, and his manager, and injured several others. Marley would go on to perform at the free concert on December 5, but he left the country the next day, not to return for two years. Deftly spanning decades and continents and peopled with a wide range of characters--assassins, journalists, drug dealers, and even ghosts--A Brief History of Seven Killings is the fictional exploration of that dangerous and unstable time and its bloody aftermath, from the streets and slums of Kingston in the 1970s, to the crack wars in 1980s New York, to a radically altered Jamaica in the 1990s. Brilliantly inventive and stunningly ambitious, this novel is a revealing modern epic that will secure Marlon James' place among the great literary talents of his generation.… (more)
Media reviews
User reviews
The initial scene shifts from 1976 to 1979 Kingston, to 1985 NYC, when the city was in the middle of a vicious crack epidemic with violent gangs from Jamaica and Colombia who fought viciously to control the booming drug trade, and to its fateful end in 1991.
The novel consists of narratives from numerous colorful characters in the book, including the gang leaders Papa-Lo, Weeper, Josey Wales and Bam-Bam; Alex Pierce, a writer for Rolling Stone who manages to get inside information about the attempt on the Singer's life, but finds his own life in danger as a result; "Doctor Love", a Colombian CIA consultant who is also involved in the drug trade centered in Medellín; and Nina Burgess, a young shape shifting woman who appears throughout the book, in different roles and with different names. The author did a masterful job in maintaining this reader's interest throughout its nearly 700 pages, as the violence and suspense increase during the book's last chapter to its sudden, shocking ending.
A Brief History of Seven Killings is a literary tour de force that tells the story of Jamaican politics and culture in the last quarter of the 20th century, which is filled with interesting characters and details. Reading it was a wild but fascinating ride, and it certainly deserves its spot on this year's Booker Prize longlist, and I think it would be a good candidate for the shortlist as well.
Marley's novel is told from several first-person perspectives and it extends from the violent landscape of the mid 1970s in Kingston to the 1990s in New York and Miami, as Jamaican drug cartels branched out into lucrative American markets. Boldly written and exquisitely researched, the novel transported this white middle-class American reader into a subculture that is certainly terrifying but one that also, in James' deft hands, becomes almost comprehensible. The characters are vivid and deeply human. And the stories are heartbreaking, horrifying, and ultimately humbling as James astutely exposes the all-too-recognizable motivations of even the most brutal killer. He doesn't flinch; he is not making excuses or sugar-coating the devastation wreaked by the posses, the drugs, and the racial oppression and its companion, deep poverty. But he writes with compassion. Ultimately, the result is a gripping, moving, mind-blowing reading experience that I wholeheartedly recommend. I say "bravo!" and I will read more of this talented author's works.
Ironically, the title's inaccuracies highlight the two qualms I had with this book. First, that it seems unnecessarily long. This is especially true in the first half. Once the rhythm is established, the characters solidified, and the patois is deciphered, A Brief History... takes off, but it still seems longer than necessary. The second issue I had was that it was much too violent for my tastes. Sure, we're talking about some Big Don/Mafioso kind of story here, so it's expected, but my anabaptist sensibilities can only handle so much rape, dismemberment, and explosion of faces. I don't watch Tarantino films or subscribe to HBO for a reason; if this book were adapted for film I would not watch it.
Length and personal feelings about violence aside, A Brief History of Seven Killings isn't a bad novel at all. Its greatest strength surely rests in its skillful implementation of voice. Many characters are given time to tell their respective story in these pages, and Marlon James nails each. At first, it may be difficult for the reader to follow the Jamaican verbiage and the stream of conscious pattern some of the characters use, but stick with it and you will be greatly rewarded. From CIA agents to drug-addicted thugs, from kingpin of the mob to a journalist who knows “the real Jamaica,” James expertly gets into these characters brains and makes their words resonate. I'd have liked to have heard more from the victims and more from female characters, but I suspect the author had his reasons for only skimming the surface in regards to these perspectives. Even though this story mostly focuses on the powerful, there is plenty of pain in this novel; everybody hurts sometimes, even heartless killers.
Like the dialogue and the characters, the story is all over the place. It spans decades and places and subplots. Like much of this novel, if you stick with it, it mostly pays off in the end. I guess that's the briefest possible way I can sum up this novel: it's challenging, but it mostly pay off if you persevere.
Of the three Man Booker finalists I have read so far, this is my favorite. I don't think it has quite the magnitude and appeal required of the winner (I'm hoping one of the other three I have yet to finish show that), but it is a worthy finalist. Certainly, Marlon James is an author I will return to and one that will probably be up for many awards throughout his career.
__
One question I have, more as a footnote, is why write a book about a famous person, make it obvious whom you're writing about, but never mention the person by name? Referring to Bob Marley always as The Singer was slightly irritating. Other real people were mentioned in this book, people who are still alive and have more power than Marley had, and James said more slanderous things about them, so it doesn't seem he did so to protect himself. Is The Singer some kind of homage to Marley? Personally, I didn't like it. At least not in the dialogue. The Singer this, and The Singer that. I would've been like, What bomboclot singer are you pussyholes talking about? (Oh yeah, you'll definitely pick up some Jamaican slang if you read this novel.)
SO WHAT'S THIS BOOK
WHAT WOULD IT HELP ME TO KNOW BEFORE READING? A little of the history of political violence in Jamaica in the 1970s, the role of Bob Marley as a neutral figure of influence above politics, and the Jamaican take over of the New York drug trade. Also, the text is littered with references to Marley's lyrics and also the lyrics from other reggae hits of the time
IS THE JAMAICAN PATOIS HARD TO UNDERSTAND? No - you've just got to read the book with the rhythm of the accent in your head, and you will soon get into the swing
WHY IS BOB MARLEY REFERRED TO AS "THE SINGER"? Presumably to avoid trouble from the litigous Marley family. Not every reference to him here would necessarily be considered positive, from his eye for the ladies, to alleged presence at kangaroo courts.
IS ANYONE ELSE REAL? Marlon James has been at pains to point out that the characters are composites, but several characters, such as "Papa-Lo" and "Josey Wales" are clearly identifiable with real people. As for the communities of Kingston that are referred to, "Copenhagen City" is clearly a composite of Tivoli Gardens, still a JLP stronghold today
WHY IS IT CALLED "A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS" WHEN THERE ARE MORE THAN SEVEN, AND ITS NOT BRIEF?: This is the title of article that the journalist Alex Pierce, is writing for The New Yorker.
IS IT PERFECT? No but I am giving it 5 stars anyway. A couple of the threads don't' work very well. The involvement of the CIA and Cuban interests don't make sense unless you are aware of the political affiliations of the JLP and PNP which most readers won't be. The circumstances of the death of the a most feared hitman seems unlikely. One character seems to be able to change identities at a bewildering speed which again seems unlikely . Most importantly, naming one of the most important characters Josey Wales, when there is a historical DJ called Josey Wales, active at the same time, and its not him was a bit weird. And the US based scenes in the second half of the book don't carry the same punch as the Jamaican scenes, for me anyway
ANY OTHER QUIRKS? A couple. Firstly in the cast of characters at the beginning of the book, there are a couple of characters listed who don't actually appear. Really. I assume this was a reference to the notoriously inaccurate Jamaican record covers of the 1970s. And there are musical references which are out of time. For example the hitman Bam-Bam wants to "rip the S off Superman's chest, pull the B from Batman belly" which is a reference to a lyric in a Barrington Levy song, but one from several years after the unfortunate Bam-Bam's demise
SHOULD I READ IT? Yes - its genius. Read it now and give a copy to your friends
In a recent review of James Ellroy's 'Perfidia' I remarked that, as I will probably be dead in twenty years' time, I simply don't have time to waste on books that are deliberately impenetrable abstruse. This novel was an even more blatant offender. Still, I won in the end - I simply left it in the underground train when I alighted, feeling suddenly free of a pernicious burden.
This book is told by a number of different people including several members of ghetto gangs, a CIA operative, a writer for Rolling Stone magazine and a young Jamaican woman who had a one-night fling with Bob Marley. In December 1976 Marley was scheduled to give a concert in Kingston Jamaica which was called a Peace Concert but it was widely believed to be an attempt by Prime Minister Manley to sway the electorate to vote his PNP party back in to government. Members of a ghetto gang from the part of Jamaica loyal to the JLP tried to assassinate Marley in his home. This book is about that attempt and what happened to the various perpetrators.
Marlon James grew up in Jamaica and he has a unique writing style that places the reader right in Kingston. Much of what he writes about is violent, filthy and poverty-stricken and yet, you don't want to turn away, you just want to go deeper. I was in Jamaica in 1970 and I remember the undercurrent of violence that was always present. I also remember the music and the Rastafarians and the white sand beaches and the great food and I would go back in a flash. Even after reading this book I would be eager to experience the island again.
First of all, the title. A Brief History? What, exactly is BRIEF about 22 CDs which require over 26 hours of listening? To be honest, I was overwhelmed before I even started, but I hope that it would be so
Unfortunately, that just didn't happen. Because of the heavy accents of some of the readers (the book is told from several points of view), as well as the Jamaican dialect, I had a difficult time even understanding what they were saying, much less how it all was supposed to fit together. Perhaps if I had a print copy of the book I would have been able to get further in, but I seriously doubt it.
I listened to approximately three hours before I had to turn off the CD player and got take two aspirin for my splitting headache.
The action of the story takes place over five days. The first two are in December 1976 and detail the attempted assassination on Bob Marley (referred to throughout the novel as "The Singer"). Later sections of the novel are set on single dates in 1979, 1985, and 1991 and deal with the ongoing personal and political ramifications of the assassination attempt as well as the rising crack epidemic. The narrators include gang members and dons of Jamaica's political party-aligned gangs, a CIA agent, an American music writer originally from Rolling Stone, the ghost of a murdered politician, and a young woman desperate to leave Jamaica for the USA who changes her identity several times throughout the novel.
This is a challenging book to read due to its sprawling narrative and dozens of characters. It's hard to keep track of the whole story and honestly I think some of the chapters may just as well be self-contained short stories. The Jamaican patois used by many of the characters can also be difficult although I enjoyed listening to the voice actors on the audiobook. But the hardest part of the book is that is just so brutal, violent, and unceasingly grim. That doesn't make it a bad book, of course, and I do like to be challenged. But it was a hard book to read nonetheless.
Bottom-line I have a deep respect for the book, the author and the story he was trying to tell I just didn't enjoy the overall reading experience. (BTW the violence in this book is vicious in ways that are almost impossible to describe but never feel exploitive)
The Marley Smile Jamaica Concert coincided with a dangerous and politically unstable time in Jamaica. Both political parties (JLP and PNP) were vying for power using gangs as enforcers. Marley’s motives were suspect. The CIA feared a move toward pro-Cuban communism. Poverty was rampant in the slums of Kingston. Out of this toxic stew arose a violent drug culture that spread over the next few decades from Columbia to Miami and New York. Meanwhile Marley passed away from cancer and a freelance writer—Alex Pierce—possibly modeled after James himself, tenaciously pursues the story with particularly negative personal consequences. Although hypothetical, the story James and his alter ego tells makes for a compelling read.
For what I did finish, the writing was remarkable. Unlike some others, I did not find the violence gratuitous, just historically accurate. I look forward to attacking this in print.
I thought this book was a fictionalized expose about the attempt on Bob Marley’s life in 1976, and in a way it is, but it is about survival and redemption. While the early part of the tale is building to the central theme of the attempt on the life of “The Singer”, it isn’t about Marley almost at all. In fact it is so little about him that his character is only called “The Singer” and never referred to by name.
This is a story about the side of Jamaica the tourist never sees, the place where dark and evil, guns, drugs, brutal sex and humiliation collide, often with terrible results. And this is about the victims, innocent or not, who struggle to survive in a horrendous environment.
The first half of the book is about the people and events leading up to the assassination attempt. The second section of the story is about clearing up all the witnesses to the event, particularly those who were handling the guns.
That is a very simplified review of the plot as there is so much more going on in every paragraph.
If you think James Elroy with a Caribbean accent, you would be on the right track as to the feel of this book. Gutsy and bold with a no holds barred approach to the characters and the plot, this is a riveting tale.
I listened to this book on audio disc and at first the patois gave me pause. Also the many characters with their multiple names, gang names, real names, aliases and cover names, was a bit confusing, but as soon as I got it straight I realized this was one of, if not the best book, I had read all year.