“James has given us an epic novel of late-eighteenth-century West Indian slavery, complete with all its carnage and brutishness, but one that, like a Toni Morrison novel, whispers rather than shouts its horrors.”

It stands in the wake of Toni Morrison’s transcendent slave literature, and it holds its own.” That familiar concept wears flesh and bone in The Book of Night Women. I knew The Book of Night Women had me when I started waking at night to worry about its characters. “When a novel casts a powerful spell, I find myself trying to locate where it got hold of me.

The Book of Night Women’s most poignant feature is James’s sensitive and layered treatment of the unlikely romance that blossoms between Lilith and her Irish overseer.” “ has carved strong and compelling female figures out of the harsh landscape of nineteenth-century British-ruled Jamaica. It is a book as heavily peopled and dark as the night in this isolated and brutal place. “ The Book of Night Women is not merely a historical novel. It’s barbaric and ancient, but also familiar in the ways that people, consumed by their differences and divisions, easily overlook all that binds them- the desire for independence, the right to a civilized life, and the need to give and receive love.” “ The Book of Night Women is a searing read, full of blood, tears, and the stench of misery. The Book of Night Women is hard to pick up, even harder to put down. “The narrative voice is so assured and the descriptions so detailed and believable that one can’t help being engaged. And the results of that experiment are an undeniable success.” “Both beautifully written and devastating…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. But the real revelation of the book-the secret to the stirring imagery and insistent prose-is Marlon James himself, a young writer at once breathtakingly daring and wholly in command of his craft. But when she begins to understand her own feelings, desires, and identity, Lilith starts to push at the edges of what is imaginable for the life of a slave woman, and risks becoming the conspiracy's weak link. The Night Women, as they call themselves, have long been plotting a slave revolt, and as Lilith comes of age they see her as the key to their plans.

Even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that they- and she-will come to both revere and fear. It is the story of Lilith, born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the eighteenth century. 'An undeniable success.” - The New York Times Book ReviewĪ true triumph of voice and storytelling, The Book of Night Women rings with both profound authenticity and a distinctly contemporary energy.

From the author of the National Book Award finalist Black Leopard, Red Wolf and the WINNER of the 2015 Man Booker Prize for A Brief History of Seven Killings

The book of night women review