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A Brief History of Seven Killings

Marlon James

$22.99

Paperback

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English
Bloomsbury
24 June 2015

ABBEY’S BOOKSELLER PICK —— I read Marlon James' 700 page novel over the Christmas break in the Summer of 2015. Every night my mind would travel to Jamaica, finding itself outside the beaches and safe tourist zones full of bars, restaurants and shops. I never saw those. My time in Jamaica was spent running with the raggedy young men brandishing their weapons, and listening to their braggadocio peppered with, no… smothered in juvenile misogyny. It takes a while for me to grasp that their childish talk is precisely because they are still children - boys, not men.

The structure of the book is interesting. No chapters as such, instead we have alternating first-person viewpoints of events and goings-on. Often we return to a person, getting more of their specific world view. I found the monologues from ganglords Papa Lo and Josey Wales to be particularly striking. Like the TV series The Wire, we gradually build an understanding of the many forces at play between the key players - the CIA, the politicians, the rival gangs, and life in the ghettos.

Some readers will struggle with the Jamaican patois. I loved it, gradually tuning in to the meaning and use of words and phrases. If you can handle that then you will be rewarded with an epic and detailed story around the violent exploitation of poverty-stricken youth towards the aims of political power struggles. Craig Kirchner
 

WINNER 2015 Man Booker Prize.
 
A musical, electric, fantastically profane epic that explores the tumultuous world of Jamaica over the past three decades. New York Times

Marlon James combines brilliant storytelling with his unrivalled skills of characterisation and meticulous eye for detail to forge an enthralling novel of dazzling ambition and scope.

 
Jamaica, 1976: On December 3, 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. Rumours abound regarding the assassins fates, and there are suspicions that the attack was politically motivated. The reggae superstar survives, but leaves Jamaica the following day, not to return for two years.

Inspired by this near-mythic event, James delves deep into this dangerous and unstable time in Jamaica's history and beyond. This is an imagined oral biography, told by ghosts, witnesses, killers, members of parliament, drug dealers, conmen, beauty queens, FBI and CIA agents, reporters, journalists, and even Keith Richards' drug dealer.

Marlon James's dazzling novel is a tour de force. It traverses strange landscapes and shady characters, as motivations are examined - and questions asked - in a masterpiece of imagination.

Justice and retribution are inextricably linked, and no one can truly escape his fate.

A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James at Abbey’s Bookshop 131 York Street Sydney

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By:  
Imprint:   Bloomsbury
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 198mm,  Width: 129mm,  Spine: 30mm
ISBN:   9781780746357
ISBN 10:   1780746350
Pages:   704
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Marlon James was born in Jamaica. He is the author of The Book of Night Women, which won the Dayton Literary Peace Prize and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. His first novel, John Crow's Devil, was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He teaches at Macalester College, Minnesota, USA

Reviews for A Brief History of Seven Killings

ABBEY’S BOOKSELLER PICK —— I read Marlon James' 700 page novel over the Christmas break in the Summer of 2015. Every night my mind would travel to Jamaica, finding itself outside the beaches and safe tourist zones full of bars, restaurants and shops. I never saw those. My time in Jamaica was spent running with the raggedy young men brandishing their weapons, and listening to their braggadocio peppered with, no… smothered in juvenile misogyny. It takes a while for me to grasp that their childish talk is precisely because they are still children - boys, not men.

The structure of the book is interesting. No chapters as such, instead we have alternating first-person viewpoints of events and goings-on. Often we return to a person, getting more of their specific world view. I found the monologues from ganglords Papa Lo and Josey Wales to be particularly striking. Like the TV series The Wire, we gradually build an understanding of the many forces at play between the key players - the CIA, the politicians, the rival gangs, and life in the ghettos.

Some readers will struggle with the Jamaican patois. I loved it, gradually tuning in to the meaning and use of words and phrases. If you can handle that then you will be rewarded with an epic and detailed story around the violent exploitation of poverty-stricken youth towards the aims of political power struggles. Craig Kirchner
 





"'Epic in every sense of that word: sweeping, mythic, over-the-top, colossal and dizzyingly complex.' * New York Times * 'A truly remarkable novel, crammed with a multitude of narrative voices, leaping across continents, reeking of sweat and gunpowder, slick with blood…As bold as literature can be'. * GQ * 'A vast, ambitious, burning mansion of a book, designed to reflect all the languages of its teeming island and the chambers of the human heart' * Irish Independent * 'Violent, lurid, scabrous, hilarious and beautiful, this novel teems with life, death and narrators. A deserving winner of...the Man Booker prize by the first Jamaican to carry off the award'. * Economist Books of the Year 2015 * ‘Showcases the extraordinary capabilities of a writer whose importance can scarcely be questioned.’  * Independent * ‘A vivid plunge into a crazed, violent and corrupt world... executed with swaggering aplomb’ -- Irvine Welsh '[James's] talent has grown from book to book, and his imagination consistently shines a light on dark and gory places...this is a work that explores the aesthetics of cacophony and also the aesthetics of violence.' * Guardian * 'Resembles James Ellroy's LA Quartet in its blistering violence, multiple voices and view of history ""from the gutter to the star""' * The Daily Telegraph * 'Critics rave about James’ mastery of both oral history storytelling and patois dialect, and his ability to craft and juggle perspectives that often contradict and obscure the truth. With comparisons to the works of David Foster Wallace and Quentin Tarantino, James has garnered the highest of contemporary praise.'     * Wired 10 Best Books of 2014 * 'This tense and violent, but very compelling, novel is a big book in more ways than one.' * The Herald *  'A brilliant novel' -- Library Journal ‘Scary and lyrically beautiful - you'll want to read whole pages aloud to strangers.’ -- Russell Banks 'Not only persuasive, but tragic, though in its polyphony and scope it’s more than that ... the book’s increasing sense of absurdity, its pop culture references, its compulsive ventriloquism and its range of tones – comic, surreal, nightmarish, parodic – began to remind me uncannily of David Foster Wallace’s all-or-nothing Infinite Jest.’ * New York Times Book Review *"


  • Shortlisted for International Dublin Literary Award 2016.
  • Shortlisted for Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2015.
  • Winner of Anisfield-Wolf Fiction Prize 2015 (United States)
  • Winner of Green Carnation Prize 2015.
  • Winner of Man Booker Prize 2015
  • Winner of Man Booker Prize for Fiction 2015.

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