A Brief History of Seven Killings / Marlon James / 2014

A Brief History of Seven Killings / Marlon James / 2014

At 706 pages and practically each chapter packed with graphic scenes of political and gang violence, A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James is not for the faint-of-heart. I listened to it an Audible because it looked like an ambitious project that delved into the biography of Bob Marley, the Cold War, and the history of Jamaica, as well as grappled with questions of how to portray violence in the Global South without becoming trauma porn.

Written in multiple perspectives, the narrators rotate to include small-time drug-addled gangsters (sometimes they’re even gay!), big-time drug-addled gangsters, Jamaican maids, a rogue journalist, US intelligence officials, and I’m sure a few others I’m forgetting to mention. The audio book is brilliantly performed. According to Marlon James, he wanted it to be “a novel that would be driven only by voice”, and in this extent, he succeeded magnificently. Piecing together the plot and keeping track of different characters is painfully dizzying and chaotic, as this plethora of voices each bring their own biases, contradictions—as a reader you will be forced to navigate the voices of dozens of flawed narrators. I had a tough time following the exact cause-and-effect of the plot beyond the broad strokes, which made me glob onto the voices of the characters as a reader.

When it comes to poetry especially, I have typically been able to get through a first reading of heavy work rather quickly even if its exhausting. I read most of [insert] boy in one day, for example. The power of violence in poetry is typically that it is lyrical enough to bear and emotionally gripping enough to haunt you: to make your visit more than just a trauma porn visit, to encourage you to seriously meditate over these issues. This is not the work A Brief History of Seven Killings. If ABHOSK avoids being trauma porn, it’s because trauma porn is supposed to be voyeuristically thrilling. The violence of ABHOSK is so overwhelming and ever present, it was sickening to try to get through. There are several attempted and completed sexual assaults and murders narrated. Early on, police investigate a rape allegation by asking all the men in the vicinity to strip and hump the floor. Here I think it would be useful to quote this telling part of an interview with the author, Marlon James:

“VASISHTA: This novel is possibly one of the most violent in Caribbean literature. Did you have a threshold to your violence?

JAMES: I’m a big believer that violence should be violent. That’s the problem with a lot of with a lot of PG-13 violence. Violence has consequences. People bleed and people die, and so it should be violent. You can end up in a sort of pornography of violence, but you have to risk pornography. If your depiction of loss doesn’t make the reader feel loss, then you didn’t depict it right.

VASISHTA: The dialogue is so real. The air is always pregnant with danger. It’s not an easy read by any standard. I’m sure people will put this book down thinking you must have seen some pretty rough things in your life.”

The reason James avoids becoming trauma porn in my opinion is that he has written a book that is nearly unbearable to get through.

If you took a shot for every time the word “pussyhole” shows up, you will be in the hospital with severe alcohol poisoning and several bottles left to drink.

I would not recommend this book to most readers, but if you are interested in Jamaican history, Bob Marley, the Cold War, voice-driven literature, multiple perspectives in literature, or are wrestling with questions about how to ethically portray violence, I would recommend this book. There is an obsession with the “real Jamaica” in this book that would make it ripe for an exploration of national identity.