The Water Cure by Sophie Mackintosh (Doubleday, 2019)
★★☆☆☆
The premise sounded interesting, but there wasn’t much to latch onto in this book, and I ultimately didn’t think it had much to say. Maybe I was just not in the mood for subtle and opaque. The dreamy style reminded me favorably of Madeleine Is Sleeping.
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A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James (Riverhead Books, 2014)
★★★★★
I rarely have the attention span to read history, but I can get into stories that center individuals and their motivations. A Brief History of Seven Killings is that and much, much more.
A somewhat fictionalized account of Jamaica in the 1970s, Seven Killings centers on the attempted assassination of Bob Marley and its aftereffects. But it’s told through the perspectives of twelve different narrators across several decades and countries. That complexity is staggering, yet never overwhelming, because James’s writing and pacing manifests his characters brilliantly. Each narrator has “desires, dimension, contradiction”; a rich inner life. (I felt emotionally attached to characters who were objectively murderous or psychopathic.) The same snappy dialogue he later employs in Black Leopard, Red Wolf is no less a joy to read here.
That’s where the book really shines, but structurally, too, it’s a coup. Woven into James’s early scenes of life on the ground are the hints of global interests and off-screen players, but they’re nearly hidden among the descriptions of everyday brutality—an obfuscation that mirrors how grinding violence/poverty protects the powerful in the book and in life. As the novel’s scope expands and the characters uncover deeper truths, so too does the reader: about the preservation of power, the CIA’s attempts to control the “Third World,” and the ramifications on the global drug trade.
Five stars. A masterpiece.
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Adaptation by Malinda Lo (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2012)
★★☆☆☆
Started off with promising action, but the non-agentic main character was dull. Appreciated the diverse cast and San Francisco locations. Was engaged enough to finish the thriller.