A Brief History Of Seven Killings by Marlon James

The year is 1975 and the location is Jamaica.  Bob Marley is back on the island of his birth, there to play at a freedom rally in order to elect men who would overthrow the last vestiges of foreign control of the island.  But two days before the rally, on December 3rd, seven men broke into his compound and rushed the house firing indiscriminately.  Miraculously, no one was killed but Marley, his wife and manager were wounded.

For most people, the story was all about Marley, his fame and his narrow escape from death.  But the seven killings referred to in this novel's title are the stories of the seven gunmen and their eventual deaths.  It is a novel about government corruption, about drugs and gangs and grinding poverty, about the men who control the slums of Kingston, about foreign governments and agencies like the CIA controlling other country's politics and laws, about women struggling to raise children in poverty and men whose only path upward is through violence and lawlessness.

The book is written from the viewpoint of many characters.  Some are the drug lords who rule the streets.  Some are foreign diplomats.  Some are journalists, some musicians.  Some are women who surround the men and fight to have anything for themselves and to make their own way in the world.  The novel spins dizzily between viewpoints and time points, in a myriad of busyness that requires the reader's entire attention.

This book was the winner of the 2015 Booker Prize and it is the first time I've read Marlon James.  It has left me eager to read anything else he has written and this book will definitely be in the top five of 2020 for me.  I loved the change in viewpoints, the history, the maneuvering behind the scenes.  It reminds the reader that as outraged as Americans are at the thought of other nations interfering in our affairs, we have a long history of doing just that to other countries and cultures.  This is not a novel for the fainthearted as it has graphic violence and language from the streets but the payoff is massive for those who read it.  This book is recommended for readers of literary fiction and those interested in learning about the lives of other cultures.