The voice is everything in Marlon James’s The Book Of Night Women. It weaves a particular kind of magic, unfolding a tale of brutality and degradation with lyrical precision, laying bare the intricate hierarchy of island life, and tricking you into waiting far longer than you normally would before questioning exactly who it is that’s telling the tale. It’s not quite contemporary, but its rhythms are perfect, a voice so sure I could nonetheless hear those island vowels as I read.
Women are at the heart of Marlon James’s story, and not only those of the title. The mistresses of the estates are as invested in events as the slaves who wait on them. It’s a rare occurrence indeed to discover it’s the men, and particularly the men in power, who are the ones fulfilling a role, reacting to rather than driving things on. Miss Isobel is particularly striking, a considerable distance from sympathetic, let alone likeable, and yet there’s an understanding of her drive to rise above her circumstances, to secure her future. Best not to talk about her methods though! As for the Night Women – slaves linked by more than the dark purpose they meet in the dead of night to discuss – Lilith and Homer are our main touchstones (and you’ve got to appreciate the well-chosen names). In taking Lilith under her wing, Homer is the perfect mirror, the perfect prophecy of a future that Lilith must kick against. And kick she will. With superstition and whispers of black magic rife among the slaves, Lilith’s green eyes set her apart and Lilith, still only a child, is all too ready to believe it. As if there’s not enough crammed into those pages already, you can throw a little coming-of-age into the mix too.
Though Marlon James’s The Book Of Night Women is a historical novel there’s much in these pages that feels all too prescient. An ideal of beauty still leans toward light skin and European features across most mainstream media. In the UK deprivation is a word that knows no ethnic boundary, but clings to BAME communities most vehemently. Visibility for people of colour continues to be an issue as the status quo begins to shift, and the inevitable push-back from the privileged begins. And then there’s the litany of flashpoints, the tumble of names that precede the moment when just one more tips the balance and the invisible can be individuals no more. George Floyd’s name echoes around the world, yet so little changes. For all the atrocities you’ll find in the pages of Marlon James’s The Book Of Night Women – or Caryl Phillips’s Cambridge, or Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black, or Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad – perhaps this is the biggest atrocity of them all: that as white people we still can’t see that racism isn’t anybody’s problem but ours.
The Book Of Night Women was published by Oneworld in 2009 ISBN:9781780746524
You can find Marlon on Twitter @MarlonJames5 or on his website marlonjameswriter.com
My particular thanks to my lovely neighbour, who lent me her copy to read.
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