Saturday, December 20, 2014

Brain Food: A Brief History of Seven Killings


I just finished reading all SIX HUNDRED AND EIGHTY EIGHT pages of Marlon James's third novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings, and I honestly don't know what to think. James's work is epic and ambitious, but is it any good?
  • Did I enjoy the book? Not really.
  • Did I learn something from it? Yes
  • Did it make me want to research and learn more? Definitely


James's previous novel The Book of Night Women was one of my favorites of last year.  It is one of those rare novels that is both readable yet profound.  I suggested it to my mother and she loved it- despite the fact that we have opposite literary tastes (I like Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; she likes Stephen King).  Consequently, when I saw A Brief History of Seven Killings on the shelves at Barnes and Noble I was excited to go home and download it onto my Kindle (the hardcover version is a big and heavy as a family Bible).

On the surface the book is about the attempted assassination of Bob Marley, referred to as "The Singer" in the novel. It begins by describing the social and political climate of Jamaica before the "Smile Jamaica" concert in 1976. In a New York Times article, James describes himself as a "trickster" and I wonder if Marley is included in the novel, in part, to attract a diverse readership.  I mean, who doesn't like Bob Marley?  I have been in a village in Senegal and private school classroom on Central Park West- and when I put on "Three Little Birds" the feeling it elicits is exactly the same (the vision of Marley that inspires those feelings is different, of course -but that is a topic for another day).

Photo: Jamaican Gleaner Marley attempting to unite political rivals Manley and Seaga at the "Smile Jamaica" concert
However, A Brief History of Seven Killings is not about Bob Marley; it is about the country that shaped him.  It details how the CIA militarized Jamaican gangs in order to prevent the re-election of Democratic-Socialist Prime Minister Michael Manley.  According to James, the increase of weapons on the island lead to the expansion of the cocaine trade in Jamaica and the crack epidemic in the United States.  The novel suggests that the CIA  ignored the use of Jamaica as a way-station for cocaine transport between Columbia and the United States.  It traces how gangs used the weapons that they were given by the CIA to fight the Cold War as tools to build a drug empire in the the United States.

Jamaica: The setting of all three of James's novels

Generally, I enjoy reading stories told by shifting narrators, but I struggled to get through this book.  At times I alternated between hating it, questioning why I was loyal to it, and figuring out what else I could read instead.  There were around fifteen narrators in total, and I found myself frequently referring back to the character list at the beginning of the book (which might have been easier if I had bought the hardcover edition) in order to keep everyone straight.  There were some voices that I dreaded hearing from because I didn't understand how they contributed to the story, or because the stream of consciousness writing style made me want to skim rather than read.

I definitely contemplated abandoning this book many times, but I kept reading because I had invested so much time into it.  The final straw almost came when the character that I connected to the most died.  However, I'm glad that I persevered because I realized that the character was only dead metaphorically (James being a trickster again).  Luckily, the final third of the book was a more interesting, and engaging read.  Perhaps when I stopped looking for Marley, I was able to grasp the complexity of what James was attempting to do with his narrative.

Having read all three of James's books (his first is John Crow Devil) I think that his strength is in writing from the perspective of black female characters.  There is one female narrator in this book, and although the novel ends with her voice I wish that there had been more of her and her family.  It is interesting that this character's upbringing is most similar to James's but she has the least backstory in the novel.

If you are interested in reading a book about Bob Marley, this is not it.   Find Timothy White's biography, Catch a Fire, or Christopher John Farley's Before the Legend: The Rise of Bob Marley.


Available on Amazon.com
However, if you are interested in what James calls "Post-Post Colonial" Caribbean literature, Jamaican history, Cold War politics, or CIA conspiracy theories give A Brief History of Seven Killings a try.  And prepare to be challenged.



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