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    A Brief History of Seven Killings
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    A Brief History of Seven Killings
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    A Brief History of Seven Killings
    Ebook870 pages21 hours

    A Brief History of Seven Killings

    By Marlon James

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    About this ebook

    *WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER PRIZE 2015*

    JAMAICA, 1976

    Seven gunmen storm Bob Marley’s house, machine guns blazing. The reggae superstar survives, but the gunmen are never caught.

    From the acclaimed author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf and The Book of Night Women comes a dazzling display of masterful storytelling exploring this near-mythic event. Spanning three decades and crossing continents, A Brief History of Seven Killings chronicles the lives of a host of unforgettable characters – slum kids, drug lords, journalists, prostitutes, gunmen and even the CIA. Gripping and inventive, ambitious and mesmerising, A Brief History of Seven Killings is one of the most remarkable and extraordinary novels of the twenty-first century.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOneworld Publications
    Release dateOct 14, 2014
    ISBN9781780745886
    Author

    Marlon James

    Marlon James was born in Jamaica. He is the author of John Crow’s Devil (Oneworld, 2015), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, and The Book of Night Women (Oneworld, 2009), which won the 2010 Dayton Literary Peace Prize, the Minnesota Book Award and was a finalist for the 2010 National Book Critics Circle Award in fiction. His third novel, A Brief History of Seven Killings (Oneworld 2014), won the Man Booker Prize in 2015, the American Book Award, and the Anisfield-Wolf Fiction Prize, and was a finalist for the International Dublin Literary Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. His short fiction and non-fiction has appeared in Esquire and Granta. He is currently the Writer-in-Residence and Associate Professor of English at Macalester College, Minnesota, USA.

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    Reviews for A Brief History of Seven Killings

    4/5

    296 ratings48 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Wow. As dense a book as I've read in a good while. Thoroughly satisfying. The blurb mentions Tarantino and DFW but I was more reminded of Ellroy via Mailer's Harlot's Ghost. I'll need some recovery time as well as an extended visit to Wikipedia to sort out fact from fiction.
    • 5/5
      James book is a dense novel told in a plethora of voices and from a similar number of perspectives. I have no idea how truly he reflects Jamaica here, but he has certainly created a fully inhabited, complex country with that name, a place that might well be a point to point analog of the "real" Jamaica. James' country is real, as are his characters. This is a masterwork, much of it written in Jamaican slang but one can pick up the rhythm of the language and meaning of unfamiliar words quickly as one reads.
    • 3/5
      A well written, quality book that I struggled with. Between shifting narrators, time periods, and dialects, I can usually keep up but this one lost me at times. I wanted to like it more than I did.
    • 3/5
      Very good, but not great exploration of a difficult moment in Jamaican history. This novel is at its best when it takes you into dangerous Kingston neighborhoods to explore gangland politics. However, there are also times when it is very slow going and some of these characters are difficult to get interested in. If you have an interest in Bob Marley, civil unrest in JA, or Kingston gangs--than you should check it out. If those aren't interests, you'll likely find this novel to be a very long 688 pages.
    • 3/5
      I am not sorry that I read it but this is a book about ghetto living, gangs & drugs & violence, which I find distasteful. For me the best aspects were the political ones (the CIA involvement etc.). I found the book to be confusing at first but as I progressed the various narratives started to link up and form a picture. For me, a lot of the initial confusion was due to 2 things: 1) I didn't know anything about Jamaica (culture, politics, history) & 2) the dialect. The characters (many of whom I was surprised to learn were real people, not just "The Singer") assume a background knowledge of terms & situations that I just didn't have. That had its positive aspect as well since it forced me to investigate and thus learn something about Jamaica of this period (say 1976-1985) (something I doubt I would have done otherwise).
    • 4/5
      This was a great read, very raw, and probably not sanctioned by the Jamaican tourism board.
    • 5/5
      Excellent. This book will test your patience - it's long, it has many narrators, different timelines, violent content, etc - but it will be worth it. I received the audio edition from Early Reviewers and it is magnificent. It's read by a full cast. The patois was an adjustment for a gringo like me but after I got used to it, it was a joy to listen to (content of the book excluded).
    • 3/5
      I just could not get into this book. I tried and failed. (Do you know how long it takes to read a 688-page book that you cannot get into? It takes a very long time.)

      I know a lot of people really love this book. It just wasn't for me.
    • 5/5
      This Booker Prize-winning novel is built around the attempted murder of Bob Marley in Kingston in 1976. Amidst political turmoil and alarmingly escalating violence, several gunmen entered Marley's mansion two nights before he was to deliver a "Peace Concert;" Marley was mildly injured, his girlfriend and manager more dangerously so, but they all survived. The raid was assumed to be perpetrated by gang/posse members upset by Marley's apparent attempt to bridge, through music, the violent chasm between supporters of the People's National Party (PNP) and the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). As the election of 1976 drew near, tensions between the two major parties were notable and gang-related violence steeped in the ideologies and loyalties of the parties was defining the public image of Kingston. Marley's novel is told from several first-person perspectives and it extends from the violent landscape of the mid 1970s in Kingston to the 1990s in New York and Miami, as Jamaican drug cartels branched out into lucrative American markets. Boldly written and exquisitely researched, the novel transported this white middle-class American reader into a subculture that is certainly terrifying but one that also, in James' deft hands, becomes almost comprehensible. The characters are vivid and deeply human. And the stories are heartbreaking, horrifying, and ultimately humbling as James astutely exposes the all-too-recognizable motivations of even the most brutal killer. He doesn't flinch; he is not making excuses or sugar-coating the devastation wreaked by the posses, the drugs, and the racial oppression and its companion, deep poverty. But he writes with compassion. Ultimately, the result is a gripping, moving, mind-blowing reading experience that I wholeheartedly recommend. I say "bravo!" and I will read more of this talented author's works.
    • 4/5
      Though it's almost always some combination of humourous, inventive, and profound, I still felt far too many pages to be a dull slog. The "plot" comes across as a patchwork of research highlights, losing purpose repeatedly and only barely sustained by the fun of the language.
    • 4/5
      "Preacher says there is a god-shaped void in everybody life but the only thing ghetto people can fill a void with is void." James is poetic but real in his book which is not only not "brief," but recounts more than "seven killings". This book is difficult, hard to read, transcendent.
    • 5/5
      This novel was the book I kept running into last year. First it did well, and received accolades during The Morning News Tournament of Books, then it won the Man Booker Prize. In between those two events, it was the topic of many discussions and the receiver of many glowing reviews. It really didn't interest me, being described as being the complex story of an attempted assassination attempt on the Jamaican Reggae singer, Bob Marley, with the book being narrated by an uncountable number of characters and much of it in impenetrable dialect. It sounded like a book that was more appreciated than loved, and one that was fueled mostly by testosterone. All of those things that made me not want to read A Brief History of Seven Killings are true, except that, after the first few chapters, the dialect was not so impenetrable as I'd feared. There are a lot of characters narrating a chaotic and wide-reaching plot, but they are each different from one another, and the cacophony of voices serves to create a clearer picture, rather than to confuse. It is a story set in a deeply misogynistic time and place, both in Jamaica in the 1970s and New York in the subsequent decades, but James has put as the novel's most well-rounded and empathetic character, a woman as counterpoint. The presence of Nina Burgess in the novel does not completely counter the sheer quantity of rape, abuse and dismissal perpetuated on any woman unfortunate enough to exist in this novel, but it does remind the reader that women existed as people even when the men running things didn't see them as such. The novel follows a number of characters, as they negotiate life in West Kingston, and mostly in the slum called Copenhagen City. Marley, who is simply called the singer, is someone who can bridge the divide between the warring factions of the city, the two political parties whose conflict roams bloodily through the slums. He's a constant presence off-stage, as the various characters revolve around his presence, or absence. He's the never clearly seen center of the novel, giving it a structure and plot, so that what looks from the outside like chaos is really a carefully planned and executed look at Jamaican life during a tumultuous point in its past. For me, this novel worked best when I finally stopped wanting to understand what every word meant and how each character fit into the story. Once I just let myself just read, it fell into place around me. I still don't know what "bombocloth" means. This is a brilliantly written book that deserves the accolades which it has received; it's a book which pulls none of its punches and smooths none of its rough edges for ease of consumption.
    • 3/5
      It took me a long time to get going in this book, partly caused by a heavy dose of Jamaican street language (and violence), partly caused by a bewildering cast of characters, partly caused by the characters remaining role playing schemata with no depth whatsoever. Having said that abour halfway the language clears up, the characters get a hold on you and the book gets a grip on you. Undoubtedly a virtuoso performance from a literary perspective but as a reading experience rather disappointing.
    • 2/5
      Couldnt finish this, just too heavy. I was drawn to it by the mention of Bob Marley, whose music I adore, but it barely mentions him at all. Exceptionally violent ( and I'm by no means squeamish) and the Jamaican slang just gave me headaches. Defintely one for hardier souls than myself.
    • 4/5
      Intense, violent, a hard read. It took about 70 pages before I got into the style and started to work out what was going on. The multiple character first person when many of the persons are out of their trees on fear, drugs or both is a challenge. James built some amazing, resonant and unforgettable characters. A commitment of a book. I'd like to read James' other book but will likely need a vat of tea and a kitty to cuddle if it's anything like this.This was my first book club choice and taught me to check the number of pages before making a recommendation.
    • 5/5
      Multiple narrators and a bunch of Jamaican slang made this book a very challenging read for me. Fascinating to see this description of Jamaica and the drug trade in the 70s through to the early 90s.
    • 5/5
      Superbly written complex story with multiple characters over several decades centred on a failed assassination attempt on Bob Marley. Fascinating insight into Jamaicanits culture politics and drug wars
    • 2/5
      A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James, author: narrators: Robertson Dean, Cherise Boothe, Dwight Bacquie, Ryan Anderson, Johnathan McClain, Robert Younis, Thom Rivera.First, let me say that I gave the book three stars, although I did not finish it, could not finish it, because I could not get past the parts that I found too disturbing. There are readers, however, that this novel will very much appeal to, who will enjoy it completely for its authenticity and realism, and I do recommend it for them. For me, though, after listening to about two hours of a 25 hour audio of the book, parts of which I replayed several times to try and understand it more fully, although I rarely do not finish a book, I simply gave up on this one. Yes, the sentences were beautifully expressive and filled with imagery, and the book has won many esteemed awards, the Man Booker Prize among them. Yes, the narrators were very good in their realistic presentations of the characters with accent and personality that was completely appropriate. However, with all that said, the book was simply not for the timid of mind and heart, like me, because of its narrative.The book covers a period of time from 1976 to 1991 and its subject matter will most likely appeal to those interested in the past history and evolution of Jamaica along with Bob Marley’s career. A troubled island, Jamaica is described as rife with corrupt governments, poverty, rival gangs and crime, especially in certain areas of the country, like the ghetto which was ruled by lawlessness. However, the language in the book is nothing short of foul, the sex is grossly overt, the violent scenes are wildly graphic and curse words spout from the mouths of most of the characters regularly. The slang words and foreign language phrases were unintelligible at times, although the language of the book was English. I simply could not interpret many of the words spoken in the Jamaican dialect or in their foreign language. From my brief encounter, I found the text crude, peppered as it was with curses and brutality, and the behavior of most of the characters was immediately heartless and selfish, amoral and unethical. Even little children were able to inflict pain and commit murder with aplomb and exhibit no remorse. Mercy was non-existent. Perhaps a print book would have worked more successfully for me, but I don’t think so. When I checked out part of a print version, I realized that the vulgarity continued throughout.For those with a broader outlook, have a go at it, but be prepared, the tale is about a difficult period for Jamaica. It describes a group of people from a culture dominated by scarcity, destitution, illiteracy, a lack of respect for human life, dignity or decency, and a total lack of morality and ethics. The characters seem like thugs, gangsters, and prostitutes, all of whom seemed to prey on those weaker than them, with the strong completely dominating and terrorizing those weaker, at will. They had no moral compass, and I had no further interest in discovering anything further about them or their lives. If you are more inclined to be sympathetic to those that fail or suffer because of their environment and upbringing, who perhaps can’t rise above adversity because of a lack of opportunity, but who instead choose to harass and mistreat others to prove their own machismo and ignore their own failures, there might be some kind of a message here. I simply could not endure the presentation of such unlikeable characters and dialogue. I think if I decide to learn more about Jamaica, its people and its culture, I will read a non-fiction book that presents a more positive image, first and foremost, with information about its past and present problems included, but not in the horrifically graphic way of this book. As a disclaimer, since I haven’t finished it, perhaps my assessment needs refining. So if you enjoyed the book, accept my apologies, and let me know what I missed.
    • 4/5
      This powerful weighty tale is told from multiple points of view -- black and white, straight and gay, educated and less so, powerful and (eventually) less so, alive and much much less so. The voices are distinctive, the characters honest in some essential sense, even as they are many of them crooks and murderers. While the "Singer" overshadows everything in this book, it is violence that largely permeates its pages as the animating spirit -- violence of every kind and persuasion, many of the acts crude and apparently senseless, and yet imbued with a certain logic when looked at from at least one character's point of view. The heroine of the tale is a survivor, a shapeshifter, a woman whose voice (and fear and yearning) remain constant even as her name changes. The men of the tale, nearly all of whom die in its pages, are brutal and clever and lyrical and passionate; their deaths do not end their voices; many ghosts speak in these pages long after they are gone. This is an epic tale; the language is relentless profane and often obscene besides. I was thinking in Jamaican curses for a month after I finished.
    • 4/5
      An intense, epic tale, this is a visceral, vibrant, violent book, and an impressive feat of literary ventriloquism, largely written in various forms of Jamaican patois. Not an easy read, and not an easy book to judge either. A story that tells much about Jamaica's politics and ghetto gangs and their motivations. The starting point is the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in Kingston in 1976 - but the scope of the story is much wider.
    • 4/5
      By the end of this book I was really seriously enjoying it. So why 4 stars and not 5. Well it takes a while,to get into the book. You have to adjust to the rhythms of the language used and try to understand the complx mesh of characters and also the politics of 1970s Jamaica. This is just mildly frustrating at the start. Persevere and it really becomes a special book, and particularly exciting in the last two parts.
    • 5/5
      A dizzying, dazzling epic - The Wire for Jamaica. Some reviewers found the violence and/or patois off-putting, and there is a lot of both ... but what film or TV show would be allowed to plumb such depths of depravity, or give itself over so fully to the language of the streets? Most impressively, James manages to make the most vile murderous thugs sympathetic - so much so that I worried about my own moral compass towards the end of the book. A worthy winner of the Booker.
    • 5/5
      I have to say that the last few years the Man Booker prize committee has chosen some great books to win the prize. Last year the book that won was The Narrow Road to the Deep North, a harrowing tale about prisoners of war in Burma. The year before that The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton won, a doorstop of a book about the New Zealand gold rush that showed the best and worst of mankind. Then this year the winner is this book which covers 15 years in Jamaica's ghettos. None of them were easy reads but they certainly show the best of contemporary fiction.This book is told by a number of different people including several members of ghetto gangs, a CIA operative, a writer for Rolling Stone magazine and a young Jamaican woman who had a one-night fling with Bob Marley. In December 1976 Marley was scheduled to give a concert in Kingston Jamaica which was called a Peace Concert but it was widely believed to be an attempt by Prime Minister Manley to sway the electorate to vote his PNP party back in to government. Members of a ghetto gang from the part of Jamaica loyal to the JLP tried to assassinate Marley in his home. This book is about that attempt and what happened to the various perpetrators. Marlon James grew up in Jamaica and he has a unique writing style that places the reader right in Kingston. Much of what he writes about is violent, filthy and poverty-stricken and yet, you don't want to turn away, you just want to go deeper. I was in Jamaica in 1970 and I remember the undercurrent of violence that was always present. I also remember the music and the Rastafarians and the white sand beaches and the great food and I would go back in a flash. Even after reading this book I would be eager to experience the island again.
    • 5/5
      Superb. A book I have been waiting most of my life to read. Marlon James handling of voice and perspective is amazing, and whilst he does occasionally make the reader do some mental calisthenics to tie all the threads together, he gets the balance just right most of the timeSO WHAT'S THIS BOOK ABOUT?: It takes as its starting point, the shooting of Bob Marley and members of his entourage in December 1976, presumed to be by members of the CIA backed JLP (Jamaica Labour Party) in response to the upcoming Smile Jamaica Peace Concert to be held a couple of days later, which had initially been intended to be politically neutral but was widely seen as an initiative of the left leaning, Cuban backed PNP (People's National Party) . The book is based around the shooting, the perpetrators of the shooting, a witness to it, and an American journalist who wants to write about it, and then follows the main characters into the 1990s in the Jamaican controlled drug trade in New York. Whilst the characters are fictional, a couple are pretty easily identifiable with real people who are now dead and its possible that Marlon James is making accusations about the perpetrators of the Marley shootingWHAT WOULD IT HELP ME TO KNOW BEFORE READING? A little of the history of political violence in Jamaica in the 1970s, the role of Bob Marley as a neutral figure of influence above politics, and the Jamaican take over of the New York drug trade. Also, the text is littered with references to Marley's lyrics and also the lyrics from other reggae hits of the timeIS THE JAMAICAN PATOIS HARD TO UNDERSTAND? No - you've just got to read the book with the rhythm of the accent in your head, and you will soon get into the swingWHY IS BOB MARLEY REFERRED TO AS "THE SINGER"? Presumably to avoid trouble from the litigous Marley family. Not every reference to him here would necessarily be considered positive, from his eye for the ladies, to alleged presence at kangaroo courts. IS ANYONE ELSE REAL? Marlon James has been at pains to point out that the characters are composites, but several characters, such as "Papa-Lo" and "Josey Wales" are clearly identifiable with real people. As for the communities of Kingston that are referred to, "Copenhagen City" is clearly a composite of Tivoli Gardens, still a JLP stronghold todayWHY IS IT CALLED "A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS" WHEN THERE ARE MORE THAN SEVEN, AND ITS NOT BRIEF?: This is the title of article that the journalist Alex Pierce, is writing for The New Yorker.IS IT PERFECT? No but I am giving it 5 stars anyway. A couple of the threads don't' work very well. The involvement of the CIA and Cuban interests don't make sense unless you are aware of the political affiliations of the JLP and PNP which most readers won't be. The circumstances of the death of the a most feared hitman seems unlikely. One character seems to be able to change identities at a bewildering speed which again seems unlikely . Most importantly, naming one of the most important characters Josey Wales, when there is a historical DJ called Josey Wales, active at the same time, and its not him was a bit weird. And the US based scenes in the second half of the book don't carry the same punch as the Jamaican scenes, for me anywayANY OTHER QUIRKS? A couple. Firstly in the cast of characters at the beginning of the book, there are a couple of characters listed who don't actually appear. Really. I assume this was a reference to the notoriously inaccurate Jamaican record covers of the 1970s. And there are musical references which are out of time. For example the hitman Bam-Bam wants to "rip the S off Superman's chest, pull the B from Batman belly" which is a reference to a lyric in a Barrington Levy song, but one from several years after the unfortunate Bam-Bam's demiseSHOULD I READ IT? Yes - its genius. Read it now and give a copy to your friends
    • 1/5
      Since I try to read all Booker winners, I forced myself to read this totally repulsive book. It is the 38th Booker winner I have read. It was so awful I checked on the rating I gave other Booker winners to see whether I should quit reading such. I find I have given five stars to only three Booker winners (The Remains of the Day,,Paddy Clarke, Ha Ha Ha, and Schindler's List) six have been given four stars, 8 have been given 3 and a half stars, four have been given three stars, five have been given two stars, two were given one and a half stars, four were given one star, and three besides this one got one-half star (The Ghost Road, Vernon God Little, and The Lines of Beauty) I wish I could give this one a negative number. It purports to be based on an event in Jamaica's history, but the telling of the event is so repulively done, with all expletives and obscenities and crudities undeleted, that it was an ordeal to read. And it is called "brief" though it goes on for 688 pages!. Every blurb on the book jacket is as far as I am concerned a total lie. It is undoubtedly the most repulsive and uninteresting book I have ever read and the best thing about my reading of it was when I got to page 688 and I could close the book and seek to forget it.
    • 4/5
      Let me start by saying this is one of the most misleading titles I've come across in my many years of reading. No, this is the most misleading title. First of all, there is nothing brief about A Brief History of Seven Killings. It is brief compared to Infinite Jest or War and Peace perhaps, but not by much. Not only is this a long book, but the language and structure make it feel much longer than its nearly 700 pages. Secondly, seven killings? I just know that someday someone is going to count every killing in this book and that number is going to be way more than seven. I'm tempted to do it myself, but I know I'd hate myself afterwards for actually taking the time. I'd guess that if you added up every killing mentioned, whether it be in the primary plot or in backstory, there would be closer to 150. So yeah, a brief history of seven killings, my ass.Ironically, the title's inaccuracies highlight the two qualms I had with this book. First, that it seems unnecessarily long. This is especially true in the first half. Once the rhythm is established, the characters solidified, and the patois is deciphered, A Brief History... takes off, but it still seems longer than necessary. The second issue I had was that it was much too violent for my tastes. Sure, we're talking about some Big Don/Mafioso kind of story here, so it's expected, but my anabaptist sensibilities can only handle so much rape, dismemberment, and explosion of faces. I don't watch Tarantino films or subscribe to HBO for a reason; if this book were adapted for film I would not watch it.Length and personal feelings about violence aside, A Brief History of Seven Killings isn't a bad novel at all. Its greatest strength surely rests in its skillful implementation of voice. Many characters are given time to tell their respective story in these pages, and Marlon James nails each. At first, it may be difficult for the reader to follow the Jamaican verbiage and the stream of conscious pattern some of the characters use, but stick with it and you will be greatly rewarded. From CIA agents to drug-addicted thugs, from kingpin of the mob to a journalist who knows “the real Jamaica,” James expertly gets into these characters brains and makes their words resonate. I'd have liked to have heard more from the victims and more from female characters, but I suspect the author had his reasons for only skimming the surface in regards to these perspectives. Even though this story mostly focuses on the powerful, there is plenty of pain in this novel; everybody hurts sometimes, even heartless killers.Like the dialogue and the characters, the story is all over the place. It spans decades and places and subplots. Like much of this novel, if you stick with it, it mostly pays off in the end. I guess that's the briefest possible way I can sum up this novel: it's challenging, but it mostly pay off if you persevere.Of the three Man Booker finalists I have read so far, this is my favorite. I don't think it has quite the magnitude and appeal required of the winner (I'm hoping one of the other three I have yet to finish show that), but it is a worthy finalist. Certainly, Marlon James is an author I will return to and one that will probably be up for many awards throughout his career.__One question I have, more as a footnote, is why write a book about a famous person, make it obvious whom you're writing about, but never mention the person by name? Referring to Bob Marley always as The Singer was slightly irritating. Other real people were mentioned in this book, people who are still alive and have more power than Marley had, and James said more slanderous things about them, so it doesn't seem he did so to protect himself. Is The Singer some kind of homage to Marley? Personally, I didn't like it. At least not in the dialogue. The Singer this, and The Singer that. I would've been like, What bomboclot singer are you pussyholes talking about? (Oh yeah, you'll definitely pick up some Jamaican slang if you read this novel.)
    • 5/5
      A BRIEF HISTORY OF SEVEN KILLINGS by Marlon James is like a mix of cocaine and fizzies shot straight into your cortex. Fast paced, explosive, unique and terribly efficient in turning your view of Jamaica from that of cow-like tourist to homicide witness. While the multiple characters, each with at least two names, makes it difficult at first to get a grasp of what is happening, once the story grabs you it is as if King Kong went looking for a date and you just happened to be Fay Wray.I thought this book was a fictionalized expose about the attempt on Bob Marley’s life in 1976, and in a way it is, but it is about survival and redemption. While the early part of the tale is building to the central theme of the attempt on the life of “The Singer”, it isn’t about Marley almost at all. In fact it is so little about him that his character is only called “The Singer” and never referred to by name.This is a story about the side of Jamaica the tourist never sees, the place where dark and evil, guns, drugs, brutal sex and humiliation collide, often with terrible results. And this is about the victims, innocent or not, who struggle to survive in a horrendous environment. The first half of the book is about the people and events leading up to the assassination attempt. The second section of the story is about clearing up all the witnesses to the event, particularly those who were handling the guns. That is a very simplified review of the plot as there is so much more going on in every paragraph.If you think James Elroy with a Caribbean accent, you would be on the right track as to the feel of this book. Gutsy and bold with a no holds barred approach to the characters and the plot, this is a riveting tale.I listened to this book on audio disc and at first the patois gave me pause. Also the many characters with their multiple names, gang names, real names, aliases and cover names, was a bit confusing, but as soon as I got it straight I realized this was one of, if not the best book, I had read all year.
    • 1/5
      Every now and again the leading literary critics seem to get together to consider whether they can pull off another emperor's new clothes scam on the reading public. The cover of this book is adorned with numerous plaudits, including one proudly attesting that the book was included on '23 best books of the year' lists. I wonder if they had been reading the same impenetrable text that I found.In a recent review of James Ellroy's 'Perfidia' I remarked that, as I will probably be dead in twenty years' time, I simply don't have time to waste on books that are deliberately impenetrable abstruse. This novel was an even more blatant offender. Still, I won in the end - I simply left it in the underground train when I alighted, feeling suddenly free of a pernicious burden.
    • 3/5
      I have made a valiant effort to listen to this epic, 22-disk audiobook. I think the story is fascinating and really appreciate the full-cast narration, which makes it much easier to keep all the characters straight. But I have been listening to it in short bursts over a couple months and I am still only halfway through it! When you stretch out a book or audiobook like this over such a long time it is hard to keep track of all the plot threads. I am giving up for now, but hope to come back to it someday -- maybe when I am taking a long road trip.
    • 4/5
      Wonderful audio! I also have the book. The audio is done with different characters so you really get the feel for the characters and the various points of view which can get lost or run together while reading. This is a gritty and satirical story that is commentary on our polite world today. Not for the faint of heart. And my guess is we will see a movie version as well. I suspect that version will be just as delightful.