A Brief History of Seven Killings

One sentence synopsis... Jamaica, 1976, days before the general election several gunmen attempt to assassinate Bob Marley - a violent, defining moment that sets off a chain reaction for a wide cast of characters. .

Read it if you like... social realism. At time more challenging then enjoyable, but definitely pays off the effort. .

Dream casting... Lakeith Stanfield as enforcer and Bertrand Russell fanboy, Weeper. Brian Tyree Henry as community/gang leader, Papa-Lo. Evan Peters as struggling journalist, Alex Pierce.

I had started the paper-book version twice but never got into the rhythm. I was, however, intrigued enough to get the audible version, and then the book opened up and enveloped me completely (probably to the point that i was speaking Jamaican in my head...). The patois on paper had me rushing to find out what it meant. Hearing it, instead, did not afford you the time and thus you just understood the context, absorbed it, and continued surfing the wave of the prose. And wave it is. James' prose is wonderful, the characters are rich, the story convoluted enough to keep you on your toes but ultimately not that consequential that , if you miss a connection, it makes much of a difference to the ride itself. Definitely one of the best books i read this year.

Impressive, but I can't say I loved the extreme violence. And the second half of the book becomes a story about drug gangs, and that's a lot less interesting than what appears to be a class and political struggle in the first half. But, wow, these characters. I read some and also listened to the audio version some, and I highly recommend that. The readers doing the Jamaican patois are outstanding.

I won't try to describe the plot of this huge novel, since the Goodreads synopsis does that perfectly well. The depiction of Jamaica in the 1970's as divided up between playgrounds for rich white tourists and battlegrounds for corrupt police, CIA operatives, and gangs run by the two main political parties, is like a dystopia. The book is appallingly violent. Most of the main characters are killers and thugs, yet I found myself liking some of them quite a bit, sympathizing with them.

The story is told through the voices of the people involved in it. Some people speak only a few times, but others come back over and over.

Bob Marley, “The Singer,” is at the center of the story. His influence endures throughout the book although his character dies only a third of the way through.

These are my random thoughts about A Brief History of Seven Killings. In short, I loved it. It's gripping. I heartily recommend it.