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Title: A Brief History of Seven Killings
Author: Marlon James
Narrator: Robertson Dean, Cherise Boothe, Dwight Bacquie, Ryan Anderson, Jonathan McClain, Robert Younis, Thom Rivera
Format: Unabridged
Length: 26 hrs
Language: English
Release date: 07-02-15
Publisher: Whole Story AudioBooks
Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 31 votes
Genres: Mysteries & Thrillers, Historical
Publisher's Summary:
Winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.
On 3 December 1976, just weeks before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert to ease political tensions, seven gunmen from West Kingston stormed his house.
Marley survived and went on to perform at the free concert. Not a lot was recorded about the fate of the seven gunmen, but much has been said, whispered and sung about in the streets of West Kingston.
Critic Reviews:
"Vast and teeming...a vivid novel that deserves all the praise it has received." (Sunday Telegraph)
"This seething, hot, violent, action-packed novel is enormous in every sense...the ambition is huge, but [James] pulls it off with huge style, confidence, imagination and wit.... Extraordinary." (The Times)
"The most original novel Ive read in years. A haunting, incendiary work." (Irvine Welsh)
Members Reviews:
Great story telling
Great story. Well knit together. The most interesting thing that stood out for me was how the story revealed itself through conversation and not explicit descriptions. Some very interesting characters although Nina Burgess' neuroticism got a bit testing at one stage.
The accents were mostly great, even when they weren't meant to be.
Main criticism is the number of re-recordings - all at a different pitch which the really drew attention to the method and not the story.
Still, not a terrible way to spend 26 hours.
Can't follow
The writing's too windy for me. Irrelevant subplots spring from every sentence and makes the whole thing hard to follow.
Excellent Imagining
I read this title for the simple reason that I try to read each Booker winner. Also, I was intrigued by the plot line; the assassination attempt on Bob Marley ("the Singer") in the 80's. Then there was an ensemble cast of narrators and a wonderfully cryptic title that belied the volume of the text. Too hard to go past. Fortunately with all that hype and the expectations of the Booker Prize hovering over it, the book delivers.
The principals are great characters. Josey Wales, gangland outlaw, sits astride the whole story. His "batty" lingo, like the panoply of Jamaican slang that populates the pages, is infectious. In my mind's eye, he was a hard version of Stringer Bell in "The Wire". Then there is a strong female lead, the chameleon-like Nina Burgess, who changes her identity in trying to escape the attempt, her partial witnessing of it and Josey Wales. And there are others; numerous voices that together reflect on the oral history of the failed attempt and its tragic consequences.
The voices and the historical consequences have been favourably compared to Faulkner and Ellory. High praise, indeed and not without truth in my opinion. So why doesn't it get 5 stars? For me it was just too long. Parts of it meandered and could (in my opinion) have been omitted without damage to the whole. But for that, it would have got my nod.
Then, when it comes to the cast, it is hard to avoid superlatives. They are each excellent. The inspire dread, warmth, concern, waste, violence and vitriol, as required. The live with the ever present and grotesque violence and bring it to life and contrast the dying. Mostly, they make the novel real.
