Marlon James’s second novel is both beautifully written and devastating. While the gruesome history of slavery in the Americas is a story we may dare to think we already know, every page of The Book of Night Women reminds us that we don’t know nearly enough. James’s narrative, related in a hard-edged but lilting dialect ... deftly avoids the clichéd melodrama such characters all too often inspire. He never draws rigid lines between good and evil, and he never takes sides ... Significant parts of The Book of Night Women are, understandably, very difficult to read. Rape, torture, murder and other dehumanizing acts propel the narrative, never failing to shock in both their depravity and their humanness. It is this complex intertwining that makes James’s book so disturbing and so eloquent. Writing in the spirit of Toni Morrison and Alice Walker but in a style all his own, James has conducted an experiment in how to write the unspeakable—even the unthinkable. And the results of that experiment are an undeniable success.
Many books are written as if feeling a lot of sympathy is enough to keep the reader on the right side of history, but Marlon James doesn’t play that game. His second novel...is not a redemption narrative ... Page after page, in small ways and large, James made me realize how rote and well-established my emotional responses are ... This epic, beautiful, complicated, enthralling book...raises an obvious question: Who the hell were these white people? They weren’t aberrant sadists—they constituted basically the entire white population of their communities ... James inspires courage of imagination, he has traversed light and darkness, he has traversed centuries, and he has traversed gender ... this is also a book about how the indomitable human impulses toward kindness, love, friendship, family, and loyalty are warped so absolutely in a slave’s life as to make a mockery of them. It is also, surprisingly, a heartbreaking love story, of a man and woman haltingly trying, and mostly failing, to overcome their status of slave and master.
The second novel from Kingston native Marlon James will having you flipping pages, thirsty for more story, late into the night ... Lilith is one of the best characters in recent memory ... Well-crafted and beautifully written in the patois of 19th-century Jamaica ... nearly all of the characters are so morally complicated that they will inspire plenty of discussion. And with its unique rhythm, this book almost asks to be read out loud. The Book of Night Women is not an easy novel. But it’s one that’s rich and true, and it will stay in your mind for weeks to come.
The Book of Night Women is not merely a historical novel. It is a book as heavily peopled and dark as the night in this isolated and brutal place. It is a canticle of love and hate ... The lasting inheritances of slavery cannot be forgotten, and through novels such as this one, history is felt. There are crowds of characters, many subplots, and a lot of history and geography to keep track of. That is how life on a huge plantation would have been. The novel can be unrelentingly violent, and the litany of terror, torture and revenge is long and horrifically detailed.
The Book of Night Women is a beautifully written, sweeping tale ... James portrays his dynamic and flawed characters in a complex, stratified society where many boundaries, some known and some unspoken, exist between slaves and their masters as well as among the slaves themselves. The authentic voice of the narrator, who remains a mystery until the end, moves the story along at a brisk pace. Strong language abounds, and the entire novel is written in a slave dialect which adds to the story, making it a realistic, engaging read. James portrays the violence as it really was, absolutely horrific, and does not hold back. One of the most satisfying parts of the novel is James’s exploration of the power of love to transform one’s thinking. This tale of freedom, hope, survival, and unlikely love is unique and will continue to make readers think.
James, a Jamaican writer whose historical tale of slavery is told through Lilith's internal patois...manages to weave a narrative that sounds neither derivative nor contrived, for the most part. Using Lilith's distinctive voice, he manages to make the story of slavery in the Americas, repeatedly recounted in fiction, new. Lilith's narration is one of the novel's strongest features, written in the vernacular and carrying its own drum-like rhythm which is as lyrical as it is hypnotic, even in the most violent passages ... James uses the imagery of witchcraft and African shamanism inventively, as a metaphor for political resistance ... In the end, the book is not just about the institutionalized hatred inherent in slavery but also a love story, with an inevitably tragic outcome.
I knew The Book of Night Women had me when I started waking at night to worry about its characters ... The conspirators distrust one another, and in this novel treachery abounds, where we expect it—between whites and slaves—and where we do not. James lets us see how suspicion and cruelty in one human arena bleed out into all the rest, among the colonials and among the slaves ... Enslave one people and all are trapped. That familiar concept wears flesh and bone in The Book of Night Women.
Jamaican slavery was notoriously sadistic, and James is writing from a female point of view, describing female reactions to violent male aggression; prurience occasionally gets the upper hand. In addition, the entire story is told in 19th-century slave dialect that is evocative but quite difficult to read. Those looking for a more detailed investigation of slavery in the West Indies should try Madison Smartt Bell's Haitian trilogy ... For larger collections of postcolonial fiction.
This is a story of slavery, and the words and imagery are often coarse and graphic, and the action can be horrifying ... Lilith is petulant, with a youthful vulnerability that is often heartbreaking ... Rich in imagery and language, this gripping tale, reminiscent of the novels of Edwidge Danticat and Toni Morrison, is... outstanding[.]
