From the acclaimed author of The Book of Night
Women comes a “musical, electric, fantastically profane”
(The New York Times) epic that explores the
tumultuous world of Jamaica over the past three
decades.
In A Brief History of Seven
Killings, Marlon James combines brilliant storytelling
with his unrivaled skills of characterization and meticulous
eye for detail to forge an enthralling novel of dazzling
ambition and scope.
On December 3, 1976, just before
the Jamaican general election and two days before Bob Marley
was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert to ease political
tensions in Kingston, seven gunmen stormed the singer’s
house, machine guns blazing. The attack wounded Marley, his
wife, and his manager, and injured several others. Little
was officially released about the gunmen, but much has been
whispered, gossiped and sung about in the streets of West
Kingston. Rumors abound regarding the assassins’ fates, and
there are suspicions that the attack was politically
motivated.
A Brief History of Seven Killings
delves deep into that dangerous and unstable time in
Jamaica’s history and beyond. James deftly chronicles the
lives of a host of unforgettable characters – gunmen, drug
dealers, one-night stands, CIA agents, even ghosts –
over the course of thirty years as they roam the streets of
1970s Kingston, dominate the crack houses of 1980s New York,
and ultimately reemerge into the radically altered Jamaica
of the 1990s. Along the way, they learn that evil does
indeed cast long shadows, that justice and retribution are
inextricably linked, and that no one can truly escape his
fate.
Gripping and inventive, shocking and
irresistible, A Brief History of Seven Killings is a
mesmerizing modern classic of power, mystery, and insight.
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