As the American born child of a Jamaican, I spent significant periods of time on the island in the late 70s and early 80s. I was old enough to understand the danger and violence but too young to understand the cause. So, I approached this book with particular interest in learning a part of history with which I, even all these years later, was still (unfortunately) unfamiliar. While this is fiction, every single time I looked something up, it was an actual true event. And even the fictional characters are all based on true people with enough similarities between what happened to them in real life and their fate in the book, that you start to wonder whether it was wise for James to write this. So, I appreciate that while this is still fiction, it's definitely giving me a very authentic view of individuals and events during that period.

With its length, so many POV characters that I lost track, interwoven story lines that develop over time, and many chapters written in the characters' Jamaican patois (which I mostly understand because of my family, but *still* struggled with at times - so I can only imagine how difficult it would be for someone who is unfamiliar), this isn't an easy read. But it will reward your patience. As a person who always wants to understand why things happen, this will help you understand the motivations of all the different players. As one who detests economic and racial inequality, it will frustrate to no end and shed light on the fuckery (to use a much loved term in the book) that sustains a global order that ensures places like Jamaica will never rise above third world country status. Definitely worth your time, but be ready for an emotional roller coaster. This book is intriguing, challenging, frustrating, and heart-breaking all at once. ( )

Well this was—well. The only story that has brought me nightmares from reading (and I have read my share of gory stuff).

The story begins in the 1970s, there is violence all over the world as coup d'etats are happening, insurgents are being trained to dispose and wreak havoc, and gangs are being used in this case in Kingston, Jamaica. These rival gangs are used by local politicians, the CIA, and South American drug cartels for whatever these different groups need and in return the gangs get weapons that they use to terrorize their communities, as well as protection against repercussions, and money.

The story is told through multiple voices, and most of them affiliated with the gangs. The Jamaican patois, the different narrators, and the violence all made this a difficult read. It is a book that made me work as a reader, and this was frustrating in the beginning because I don't do well with multi-driven stories. Typically, I am most at ease with a single trustworthy narrator telling a story in chronological order. Here though, just as I was getting settled into the voice of one character, the point of view shifts and we slip into another voice and so it took me a while to get familiar with the voices. The voices are desperate, restless, hateful, violent, needy, self-loathing, and vengeful. It was unpleasant reading through them, and yet I really can't imagine this story told in any other way after I was done. The narrative felt rounder, fuller, more layered, and with different textures. Importantly, we see these human beings who do despicable and horrifying acts to others as human beings. Human beings whose circumstances (poverty and violence) create them into the perpetrators of the same cycles that they were victims to.

Also at the center of the story is a musician referred to as the Singer. Early on it's easy to tell that this figure is Bob Marley, even before the only three references to his actual name are made in the book, and only two of those being direct. Curiously, he's the only person not humanized in the story. He is elevated to an angel-like status; highly perceptive, and capable of sensing things almost in a superhuman fashion; very forgiving and compassionate, showing love and mercy to even those that harm him, and representing different things to different people, as a symbol of peace, love and unity to many Jamaicans and as a threat to those who benefit from the discord and violence.

This is a great book. The characters are unforgettable, it is action packed, and language bends and shifts to make the story what it is. The moments of violence are many, there's no lingering or overbearing metaphors (there is a moment the writer winks at this), just forward moving with a cinematic effect in that the reader is immersed seamlessly and completely into the story. And it's that bit that made the disturbing scenes so brilliantly executed that they came to hound me in my dreams. This is my second Marlon James book, [b:The Book of Night Women|4682558|The Book of Night Women|Marlon James|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1442717381l/4682558._SX50_.jpg|4733113] was also incredible and I was impressed by James's power as a writer yet again, I'll be thinking of this book for days and days to come. ( )

This is a dark and immersive recounting of the political events both governmental and criminal surrounding the assassination attempt of Bob Marley in December 1976 in Jamaica. Constructed as an oral history, the book follows a wide cast of characters as they navigate the historic moments before, during and after. Viscerally, unflinchingly detailed, this book refuses to cut away during terrifying scenes of torture and death.

As a complete neophyte to these events, I found myself bewildered but captivated. The various narrators all have powerful voices that command attention. Although many of the nuances escaped me, I'm sure, I found this to be a story I couldn't look away from even as it twisted my gut into knots.

I often struggle with oral histories because I can't remember all the character's names or how they fit together. This book was no exception to that difficulty, but I still found it compelling and meaningful to consume nonetheless. ( )

"The Wire" set in Jamaica....whats not to like? ( )

But one of the reasons why it’s a big novel is almost for the same reason you have something like a double album. Because I think — I hope, and so far some critics seem to agree with me and some critics don’t — that a bigger novel is a wider canvas to experiment with... I’m not sure why ambition is looked upon as a bad thing. - Marlon James*

I really like thinking of this novel as a double album. That works. Because it's big, really big, and ambitious, and has two separate but obviously connected parts.

The first part is 5 stars for me all the way. Jamaican politics, and its associated gangs, and Bob Marley, and the CIA, and fascinating characters like Papa Lo and Weeper, and culminating in the attempted assassination of Marley by a gang of ghetto gunmen, whose leader is operating out of several motives, personal and political. Marley, always referred to as the Singer, his fame just that encompassing, is ever present just off-stage, working to create a peace which is not in the interests of certain elements.

His ultimate inability leads to the second album, post Marley's terribly early death from cancer, and we lose the politics and the Singer and gain the Medellin cartel, crack cocaine, drug empires in Brooklyn and the Bronx, and, a bit oddly, graphic gay sex ("I do actually believe in explicit violence. I believe in explicit sex... There’s something to be read in the explicit scene.*). This album didn't interest me so much though I recognize the quality.

* - Guernica interview, https://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/violently-wrought/

---- In-Reading Comment ---
Brethren, what the bombocloth you mean calling this a brief history? Could have been done a lot briefer, but that's cool, it's real good. ( )