 | A WRITER'S WIT |
My Book World
James, Marlon. A Brief History of Seven Killings. New York: Riverhead, 2014.
At the end of 2015, I watched BBC America as Mr. James won the Booker Prize in London—an approximation of America’s National Book Award. Because I’m constantly juggling the reading of several books, I have a difficult time with rather lengthy tomes—this one is 688 pages—but Brief History is well worth the time, is worthy of the many accolades it has received. On the cover some reviewers call it is a masterpiece. Only time will tell on that score, but it is certainly a hearty and substantive read, plenty of red meat for any reader.
You know you’re in for an exhilarating ride when the author provides a cast of characters totaling seventy-six. Now only thirteen actually narrate, but still, thirteen alternating points of view provide great layers of texture to the narrative, a broadening of its scope. The first two parts take place in 1979 and fictionalize the assassination attempt on the life of musician Bob Marley—referred to as the Singer. The third part takes place in 1979, the fourth in 1985, and the fifth in 1991—the aftermath that keeps unfolding. A coda of sorts, consisting of twelve short chapters, serves as a very satisfying denouement, in which everyone’s questions are answered.
Yet the novel is so much more than an inside look at Jamaica’s drug trade. I’m not sure any writer has ever captured Jamaican life in the manner that James does. First, he succeeds in recreating, in print, not only one but probably several Jamaican dialects (much like Twain does in Huckleberry Finn). Do I know that for sure? No. It’s a guess. But I do know this. The text seems authentic. Nowhere in the book, do you find the word “Goddamn,” except when an American is speaking. You will run across, scores of times, the words “Bombocloth” or “bloodcloth.” If you let your imagination run wild, you can guess what kind of cloth is a bloodcloth. This male-dominated society would rather use iconography of menstruation to swear than risk the wrath of the Pentecostal God that reigns over its shores. Then there is the word, “fuckery.” Beautiful. James’s prose is so clean, free not only of traditional syntax but free of conventional thought, as well. He recreates a world you will never see when your cruise ship stops for the day in Montego Bay.
Three paragraphs, and I’ve barely touched on the novel, but here are what I deem to be some pretty fine nuggets:
At the end of 2015, I watched BBC America as Mr. James won the Booker Prize in London—an approximation of America’s National Book Award. Because I’m constantly juggling the reading of several books, I have a difficult time with rather lengthy tomes—this one is 688 pages—but Brief History is well worth the time, is worthy of the many accolades it has received. On the cover some reviewers call it is a masterpiece. Only time will tell on that score, but it is certainly a hearty and substantive read, plenty of red meat for any reader.
You know you’re in for an exhilarating ride when the author provides a cast of characters totaling seventy-six. Now only thirteen actually narrate, but still, thirteen alternating points of view provide great layers of texture to the narrative, a broadening of its scope. The first two parts take place in 1979 and fictionalize the assassination attempt on the life of musician Bob Marley—referred to as the Singer. The third part takes place in 1979, the fourth in 1985, and the fifth in 1991—the aftermath that keeps unfolding. A coda of sorts, consisting of twelve short chapters, serves as a very satisfying denouement, in which everyone’s questions are answered.
Yet the novel is so much more than an inside look at Jamaica’s drug trade. I’m not sure any writer has ever captured Jamaican life in the manner that James does. First, he succeeds in recreating, in print, not only one but probably several Jamaican dialects (much like Twain does in Huckleberry Finn). Do I know that for sure? No. It’s a guess. But I do know this. The text seems authentic. Nowhere in the book, do you find the word “Goddamn,” except when an American is speaking. You will run across, scores of times, the words “Bombocloth” or “bloodcloth.” If you let your imagination run wild, you can guess what kind of cloth is a bloodcloth. This male-dominated society would rather use iconography of menstruation to swear than risk the wrath of the Pentecostal God that reigns over its shores. Then there is the word, “fuckery.” Beautiful. James’s prose is so clean, free not only of traditional syntax but free of conventional thought, as well. He recreates a world you will never see when your cruise ship stops for the day in Montego Bay.
Three paragraphs, and I’ve barely touched on the novel, but here are what I deem to be some pretty fine nuggets:
“Listen.
Dead people never stop talking. Maybe because death is not death at all, just a detention after school. You know where you’re coming from and you’re always returning from it. You know where you’re going though you never seem to get there and you’re just dead. Dead” (1).
What a fabulous opening. And there’s more from this character, who is actually dead—Sir Arthur George Jennings, a former politician, a ghost!
“Me want enough money to stop want money” (55).
—Demus, a gang member
“The white man say we’re fighting for freedom from totalitarianism, terrorism and tyranny, but nobody know what he mean” (73).
—Bam-Bam, a gang member
“Certain parts of town you let the baby walk the street and you leave him when he play in the shit water. And when him get sick so that he is just a ballooning, bursting screaming belly that used to be a baby, you take your time to go to clinic which too packed anyway and the baby dead while you waiting in the line, or maybe you take pity and cover the baby with your pillow the night before and either way, you see and wait, because death is the best thing you could do for him” (179).
—Papa-Lo, don of Copenhagen City, 1960-1979
“Please, please, please, please, please shut up. Just shut up. I’m going to go find my head” (308).
—Kim Clarke, unemployed woman. Reminiscent of woman’s speech in Hemingway’s story, “Hills Like White Elephants,” in which she uses “please” seven times (no commas) to demand that a man to stop talking. Effective in both cases.
“—Eh, what do you really think you know about the Central Peace Council? I bet you didn’t know that it was a joke. Peace. Only one kind of peace can ever come down the ghetto. It’s really simple, so simple even a retarded man can catch the drift. Even a white man. The second you say peace this and peace that, and let’s talk about peace, is the second gunman put down their guns. But guess what, white boy. As soon as you put down your gun the policeman pull out his gun. Dangerous thing, peace. Peace make you stupid. You forget that not everybody sign peace treaty. Good times bad for somebody” (387).
—Josey Wales, don, speaking to Alex Pierce, journalist for Rolling Stone
“It is a thing to watch, the kind of feeling that take up a white man every time you take him to Port Royal. You wonder if this is the same spirit that leap up in them as soon as they land on any rock. I’m betting it is so, from as far back as Columbus and slavery. Something about landing from sea that make a white man free to say and do as he please” (411). Whoa!
—Josey Wales, head enforcer, don of Copenhagen City, 1979-1991, leader of the Storm Posse
“Now something new is blowing through the air, an ill wind” (430).
—Sir Arthur George Jennings, ghost, repeats this phrase--something new is blowing—scores of times in this chapter. “Tony McFerson stands up first with a wide smile on his face, a heave and a sigh of relief one could see from four hundred feet away. The third bullet goes through his neck sideways, explodes the medulla and kills everything below the neck before his brain realizes he’s dead” (432). What description!
“But Weeper have this thing where he just can’t get along with any woman, or rather this thing where no woman can tell him what to do. Then again Griselda is not a woman. She a vampire who cock drop off a hundred years ago. She lose her patience with him and when a madwoman like her lose her patience with you she would make even a hardcore Jamaican rudie go, Bombocloth bitch yuh wicked no fuck. Was just a matter of months before she kill Weeper herself” (465).
—Josey Wales, speaking of Weeper, a gang enforcer, Storm Posse head enforcer, Manhattan/Brooklyn
“Right now everybody know that whoever shoot the Singer was aiming for the heart but get the chest and only because he exhale instead of inhale, right? I mean, it even in the book on him” (544).
—Tristan Phillips, inmate at Rikers
A Brief History of Seven Killings is one of those major works I know I shall read again—largely because there is so much to digest and understand. It’s that dense with irony, with meaning. It’s that enjoyable, if I dare use such a word.
NEXT TIME: New Yorker Fiction 2016
NEXT TIME: New Yorker Fiction 2016
READ MY ‘BEHIND THE BOOK’ BLOG SERIES for My Long-Playing Records & Other Stories. In these posts I speak of the creative process I use to write each story. Buy a copy here!
Introduction to My Long-Playing Records
"My Long-Playing Records" — The Story
"A Certain Kind of Mischief"
"Ghost Riders"
"The Best Mud"
"Handy to Some"
"Blight"
"A Gambler's Debt"
"Tales of the Millerettes"
"Men at Sea"
"Basketball Is Not a Drug"
"Engineer"
"Snarked"
"Killing Lorenzo"
"The Age I Am Now"
"Bathed in Pink"
Listen to My Long-Playing Records Podcasts:
"A Certain Kind of Mischief"
"The Best Mud"
"Handy to Some"
"Tales of the Millerettes"
"Men at Sea"
"My Long-Playing Records"
"Basketball Is Not a Drug"
"Snarked"
"Killing Lorenzo"
"Bathed in Pink"
Also available on iTunes.
Introduction to My Long-Playing Records
"My Long-Playing Records" — The Story
"A Certain Kind of Mischief"
"Ghost Riders"
"The Best Mud"
"Handy to Some"
"Blight"
"A Gambler's Debt"
"Tales of the Millerettes"
"Men at Sea"
"Basketball Is Not a Drug"
"Engineer"
"Snarked"
"Killing Lorenzo"
"The Age I Am Now"
"Bathed in Pink"
Listen to My Long-Playing Records Podcasts:
"A Certain Kind of Mischief"
"The Best Mud"
"Handy to Some"
"Tales of the Millerettes"
"Men at Sea"
"My Long-Playing Records"
"Basketball Is Not a Drug"
"Snarked"
"Killing Lorenzo"
"Bathed in Pink"
Also available on iTunes.
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