On December 3, 1976, two cars stop outside Bob Marley’s house in Kingston, Jamaica. Seven men—eight, or so the story goes—step out armed with guns, storm the singer’s home, and fire 56 shots in an attempt to kill him. They fail.
The attackers remain unidentified and were never caught.
Using this event as its starting point, Marlon James weaves a story that is neither brief nor solely about seven murders.
The narrative involves secret service agents, gangsters, drug dealers, politicians, hitmen, a journalist, a mysterious nurse, and the ghost of a murdered man who knows too much…
And music—lots of music—how could it be otherwise, in Jamaica, the land of reggae, rocksteady, and ska?
The author handles all of this, and much more left unspoken, with masterful skill, delivering a work that won the 2015 Man Booker Prize.
A Brief History of Seven Killings, according to The New York Times, is like a remake of The Harder They Come, directed by Tarantino, but with a soundtrack by Bob Marley and a screenplay by Oliver Stone and William Faulkner…
