A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
*contains spoilers* As any experienced reader will tell you, one should never put too much stock in the title of a book. In many cases, it can simply be a label by which a work may be known and catalogued henceforth, as opposed to an encapsulation of the tangled threads encased in its covers. Whilst much could be said on this subject, the main point here is that A Brief History of Seven Killings is neither brief nor just a book about only seven killings – there are seven killings, and it can in places be brief, but on the whole it is so much more in both respects. James starts us off in Jamaica in 1976, and one can gauge quite vividly the attitudes of the time, place and culture simply through the way those of Kingston speak of their greatest export, Bob Marley; “Nobody who kill a police is going to hell but is something else to kill the Singer.” Marley’s power and influence over not just Kingston but the thousands of people who inhabit and are drawn to Jamaica from all over the world...