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Book Nook provides readers with insights into the world of books. Vick Mickunas takes you into the center of the publishing world with the latest book buzz, book reviews, and exclusive chats with authors..Home > Blogs > Book Nook > Archives > 2009 > April > 19 > Entry
Slavery wasn’t that long ago…
“The Book of Night Women” by Marlon James, (Riverhead Books, 417 pages, $26.95)
A few weeks ago I was on board a plane jetting across the Pacific Ocean. I was snuggled into my seat with a book and my dreams of the relaxing vacation that lay ahead of me.
I was reading “The Book of Night Women” by Marlon James. It isn’t a book that leads to relaxation. It’s the fictional account of a slave revolt in Jamaica during the late 18th Century. James is a professor at Macalester College. He was born in Jamaica in 1970.
The story is being told by an unknown narrator who is speaking in the slave dialect of that era and place. This mysterious storyteller is relating the tale of a slave called Lilith. Our narrator seems to know Lilith quite well.
Toni Morrison’s most recent novel “A Mercy” depicted slavery in colonial Virginia during the early years of the American colonies. Slavery is a horror. But there are varying levels of cruelty. The slavery that James describes in the British colony at Jamaica makes Morrison’s account seem almost benign by comparison.
Lilith lives on a sugar cane plantation. She is a lovely young woman with dazzling green eyes. As the story begins she has been placed in a situation where she is not expected to do very much work. All around her unspeakable cruelty is the norm.
A slave who shows the slightest trace of insubordination risks instant death at the hands of her captors. There is a hierarchy among the slaves. At the top rung are the “Johnny-jumpers” who assist the overseers in controlling the slaves. Their cruelty is excessive, too.
Then there are the house slaves who possess some slight dignity and privilege when compared to the lowest and saddest ones, the field slaves, who labor and die in agony. Lilith soon joins the house slaves in the big mansion where she finds a mentor in the embittered Homer, a woman who cannot forgive the loss of her children.
Homer is the leader of the “night women” of the title. They meet regularly in a cave to plot a rebellion against the whites. The white characters in this book don’t come off very well. The domination of other human beings provides scanty opportunities for kindness.
Lilith falls in love with the Irish overseer. On occasion he even treats her like a human being. One must bear in mind that in those days the Irish were treated as their own inferior class of people by the English.
She thinks he might love her too: ” She know as soon as he start playing with her name, taking Lilith and Lovey and getting Lily and then going back to Lovey.”
The story builds upon layers of violence and hatred that ultimately explode when the slaves revolt. Lilith is caught in the middle. Her sympathies are with Homer’s rebellion but she loves the Irishman. James has written a stunning and difficult book. It will burn in this reviewer’s memory for many years to come.
Vick Mickunas
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