Marlon James 978-1-59448-600-5 Riverhead 688 Pages; First Printing: October
2014
Death and war are inescapable
in A Brief History of Seven Killings,
and both are ongoing. The first of several narrators is a dead politician who
yearns to haunt and do harm to the man who killed him. What makes this amazing
novel shine is Marlon James’s ability to depersonalize a story, the type of historical
retelling many writers tend to romanticize. James achieves this by deconstructing
the many myths that surround several archetypes, particularly the shady
government operatives who destroy countries and governments, and the dons and
gunmen who rule the ghetto. 