Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.96 AVERAGE
3.96 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
DNF. I made it past halfway but didn't want to continue. I didn't think the killings would bother me so much. They did. And the young men who get entangled in the assassination plot — I just felt bad for them. I was feeling so bad, it made me not want to read anymore. I'm not usually like that; usually I'm a compulsive book finisher. Not this time. (It's very well written.)
.
.
This book is in two halves. The first half - incredible, some of the best writing I’ve read this century. The second half - taxing with spurious reward.
I’ll break it down:
“ORIGINAL ROCKERS
December 2, 1976”
9/10
“AMBUSH IN THE NIGHT
December 3, 1976”
10/10
“SHADOW DANCIN'
February 15, 1979”
8/10
“WHITE LINES / KIDS IN AMERICA
August 14, 1985”
5/10
“SOUND BOY KILLING
March 22, 1991”
5-6/10
Overall: 7.5/10
I’ll break it down:
“ORIGINAL ROCKERS
December 2, 1976”
9/10
“AMBUSH IN THE NIGHT
December 3, 1976”
10/10
“SHADOW DANCIN'
February 15, 1979”
8/10
“WHITE LINES / KIDS IN AMERICA
August 14, 1985”
5/10
“SOUND BOY KILLING
March 22, 1991”
5-6/10
Overall: 7.5/10
I'm tending towards 4 stars as I started enjoying the book in the last 50 or so pages. But it felt like a slog at times getting there. It was hard for me to understand the thread of the story in the early going as there are many voices and they provide there own stories. Sometimes it's tied to a central thread, sometimes not. Sometimes it's not clear until much later how a part of the story fit in.
I saw in the acknowledgements that the author thanked a friend for giving him the suggestion that the story could proceed through many seemingly unrelated voices. Much like *As I Lay Dying*. An apt guide to what is going on here. I felt lost reading that book the first time too. *As I Lay Dying* is a bit easier to revisit given the relative brevity of the chapters and book.
So, this story is layered in voice by voice like a mosaic until a clear(er) thread appears. With more concentrated effort it might have been clearer to me earlier on, but I didn't have the energy then.
Maybe I'll revisit one day.
I saw in the acknowledgements that the author thanked a friend for giving him the suggestion that the story could proceed through many seemingly unrelated voices. Much like *As I Lay Dying*. An apt guide to what is going on here. I felt lost reading that book the first time too. *As I Lay Dying* is a bit easier to revisit given the relative brevity of the chapters and book.
So, this story is layered in voice by voice like a mosaic until a clear(er) thread appears. With more concentrated effort it might have been clearer to me earlier on, but I didn't have the energy then.
Maybe I'll revisit one day.
At 688 pages this book is not brief, nor is it a history but rather a speculation on an historical event and there are many more than seven killings. It is a book with which you have to engage as it is definitely not an easy read and it takes time to accustom oneself to the different voices of the large cast of characters. But the reward outweighs the effort both in terms of a fascinating story and the fresh way it is told by all the characters speaking for themselves. Along the way one learns a lot about the circumstances surrounding the assassination attempt on Bob Marley in 1976, Jamaican culture and politics, the cold war as it affected Jamaica and the drug scene in both Jamaica and mainland USA.
Marlon James was a child of six at the time of the assassination attempt, but he remembers it as something unusual as grown-ups talked about it in hushed voices with a palpable sense of fear since there had been an unwritten rule that 'nobody touches the tough guy.' In other words, Marley, who is referred to in the novel as the Singer, had been considered above the violence that characterised the political scene. The inspiration for the novel came from an article written by Timothy White, the author of a biography of Marley, speculating on the assassination attempt, to this day unsolved. The article came out a good fifteen years before the publication of James' first novel in 2005, so it had a very long gestation period.
James is less interested in the event itself than in its impact on the lives of people concerned and this provides the kernel of the story. These people, from the the 14 year old Bam-Bam to the don Papa-Lo, the seedy journalist Alex Pierce to the Chicago hit-man John-John K, tell their own stories and the authenticity of the voices is striking. James has said that it required a major effort to let the characters tell their own stories and keep the author out, but he has succeeded and this is one of the things that makes the book particularly effective.
Marlon James was a child of six at the time of the assassination attempt, but he remembers it as something unusual as grown-ups talked about it in hushed voices with a palpable sense of fear since there had been an unwritten rule that 'nobody touches the tough guy.' In other words, Marley, who is referred to in the novel as the Singer, had been considered above the violence that characterised the political scene. The inspiration for the novel came from an article written by Timothy White, the author of a biography of Marley, speculating on the assassination attempt, to this day unsolved. The article came out a good fifteen years before the publication of James' first novel in 2005, so it had a very long gestation period.
James is less interested in the event itself than in its impact on the lives of people concerned and this provides the kernel of the story. These people, from the the 14 year old Bam-Bam to the don Papa-Lo, the seedy journalist Alex Pierce to the Chicago hit-man John-John K, tell their own stories and the authenticity of the voices is striking. James has said that it required a major effort to let the characters tell their own stories and keep the author out, but he has succeeded and this is one of the things that makes the book particularly effective.
Dark, violent, and sometimes funny. A Brief History of Seven Killings starts and finishes strong, but drags slightly in the middle. The heavy use of patois takes a bit of getting used to as well. However, these are minor gripes against an otherwise gripping novel.
Repetitive, boring, maybe crime stuff isn’t for me since everyone was so repugnant
challenging
dark