Take a photo of a barcode or cover
brughiera 's review for:
A Brief History of Seven Killings
by Marlon James
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.