"A Brief History of Seven Killings" Quotes
By Marlon James
fiction | 704 pages | Published in 2014
Winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize One of Entertainment Weekly's Top 10 Books of the Decade One of the Top 10 Books of 2014 – Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times A “thrilling, ambitious . . . intense” (Los Angeles Times) novel that explores the attempted assassination of Bob Marley in the late 1970s, from the author of Black Leopard, Red Wolf In A Brief History of Seven Killings, Marlon James combines brilliant storytelling with his unrivaled skills of characterization and meticulous eye for detail to forge an enthralling novel of dazzling ambition and scope. On December 3, 1976, just before the Jamaican general election and two days before Bob Marley was to play the Smile Jamaica Concert to ease political tensions in Kingston, seven gunmen stormed the singer’s house, machine guns blazing. The attack wounded Marley, his wife, and his manager, and injured several others. Little was officially released about the gunmen, but much has been whispered, gossiped and sung about in the streets of West Kingston. Rumors abound regarding the assassins’ fates, and there are suspicions that the attack was politically motivated. A Brief History of Seven Killings delves deep into that dangerous and unstable time in Jamaica’s history and beyond. James deftly chronicles the lives of a host of unforgettable characters – gunmen, drug dealers, one-night stands, CIA agents, even ghosts – over the course of thirty years as they roam the streets of 1970s Kingston, dominate the crack houses of 1980s New York, and ultimately reemerge into the radically altered Jamaica of the 1990s. Along the way, they learn that evil does indeed cast long shadows, that justice and retribution are inextricably linked, and that no one can truly escape his fate. Gripping and inventive, shocking and irresistible, A Brief History of Seven Killings is a mesmerizing modern classic of power, mystery, and insight.
ISBN_13: | 9780698170506 |
ISBN_10: | 0698170504 |
Quotes
I don't give a damn what it means about history or science or literature. I just know what it means to me and it don't make no damn sense.
That's always been the problem with people from here: you put too much damn faith in politicians.
Them think we dumb, but we not dumb. Them think we forming—no, we not forming. We just don't like them problem.
We dream more of being gangster than girl. Seriously, we do. God, you people love that shit.
Love doesn't have no color, no class, no shape, no sex. Love is the answer when no question was asked.
The more blood flowing the better.
I've never been scared of dead. Dead is easy. It's the living I hate.
We are a nation of identity thieves, which is to say that the world doesn't want us unless we're imitation people.
Don't care how long you live, don't care how long you dead. The only thing that matter is what you leave behind.
It's not the bad parts of the city that think they're Americans. It's the good parts. The clean-scrubbed parts with expensive suits and underage whores.