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| The Book of Night Women |  | Author: Marlon James
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy New: $10.78
as of 3/20/2010 12:38 CDT details
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Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  29 reviews
Sales Rank: 29,859
Format: Bargain Price
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 432
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 5.9 x 1.5
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
ASIN: B002BWQ4R8
Publication Date: February 19, 2009
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
The Book of Night Women is a sweeping, startling novel, a true tour de force of both voice and storytelling. It is the story of Lilith, born into slavery on a Jamaican sugar plantation at the end of the eighteenth century. Even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that theyand shewill come to both revere and fear.
The Night Women, as they call themselves, have long been plotting a slave revolt, and as Lilith comes of age and reveals the extent of her power, they see her as the key to their plans. But when she begins to understand her own feelings and desires and identity, Lilith starts to push at the edges of what is imaginable for the life of a slave woman in Jamaica, and risks becoming the conspiracys weak link.
Liliths story overflows with high drama and heartbreak, and life on the plantation is rife with dangerous secrets, unspoken jealousies, inhuman violence, and very human emotionbetween slave and master, between slave and overseer, and among the slaves themselves. Lilith finds herself at the heart of it all. And all of it told in one of the boldest literary voices to grace the page recentlyand the secret of that voice is one of the books most intriguing mysteries.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 29
 Lover of Historical Fiction Novels March 18, 2010
G. Taylor (Germantown, TN USA)
Six Stars! When I finished reading this book, the first thought that came to mind was, "Damn."
Engrossing read March 14, 2010
Louise Diaz (Spring Grove, VA)
I couldn't put this book down until I finished reading it (well except to take care of life tasks, sleeping, eating, etc.). It helped that I had heard an interview of the author beforehand so I was able to keep his voice, specifically the rhythm of his speech,in my head as I read. It's written in a heavy dialect but you get used to it quickly.The characters are certainly not lovable but understandable for the most part. There are some horrific scenes and lots of brutality as the book describes slavery in Jamaica and the resistance of the enslaved women on one plantation who are the children of slave women and the overseer. I think it's a must read for those interested in historical fiction of the Carribean and slavery.
Captivating and Disturbing February 26, 2010
Mary O. Garm (Forest City, PA)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Lilith is born on a sugar plantation in the West Indies just before the turn of the 19th century. She believes that her green eyes, the legacy of a white father, prove that she is better than the other slaves, destined for a different life. She spends her youth and young adulthood pushing against a world that refuses to allow her to realize her limited dreams. Barred from the world of the white masters and mistrusted by slave society, she alternately suppresses and unleashes the anger, violence, and darkness within her.
A summary of this novel can sound trite and timeworn: The unspeakable treatment of slaves is set against the luxurious lifestyle of the masters. A forbidden love affair grows between Lilith and a white overseer. Rebellion is fomented by the Night Women, a group of female slaves.
However, nothing about this novel is what you might expect. The daily life of slaves -- hard work, tedium, horrific and random punishment -- is depicted in a way rarely seen in fiction. The thoughtless cruelty of the white ruling class stuns the reader at every turn. The captivating use of patois creates a strong and rhythmic narrative that holds up from the first page to the last.
The characters in this novel, whether white masters or kitchen slaves, are all too human. None is perfect, and it is difficult to root even for the protagonist, as the author follows her mental and emotional shifts from loyalty to cruelty, from obedience to treachery.
Moving swiftly, pulling the reader into a world of heat, hatred, and dreams of freedom, the novel can, at times, be hard to read, because of its relentless focus on the terror of slavery. It is well worth the effort, though, because this remarkable and disturbing book will change the way you look at the history of slavery in the Americas.
Nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Highly recommended.
HAUNTING... February 7, 2010
SoulSistah#1 (Where I'm at!)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've waited two weeks after reading this book before I decided to write a review. I waited so long partly because I needed time to process what I had read and partly because the characters kept haunting me. The imagery of this book is so expertly written that at times I found myself mentally gasping for air. I could literally smell the "mint and lemongrass" of Homer and I could feel the physical and mental pain associated with purposely stifling rage and fury as a means of survival. I felt anger and symphathy for lilith simultaneously and I winced in empathethic pain as the characters were beaten, whipped, tortured and brutalized. The chapter describing the construction of the gibbet, the housing and subsequent hoisting of the men and women into the trees is what prompted the title of this review (I hope this sentence piques your interest into purchasing the book to find out what a gibbet is and why it was pivotal to my description).
Despite the soul and gut wrenching imagery, this book is rhythmic in narration. The wording and melodic patois of the characters as well as the narrator provide a needed balance between the descriptive brutality. Additionally, the juxtaposition of a "love story', or what feels like 'love' to one of the central characters is sure to incite an internal debate among the reader. After completing this book, I found myself studying the face of the author on the back flap. For a minute I taught he might be an extra terrestrial or wrote this book supernaturally because the writing was otherwordly beautiful, perfectly beautiful.
If you are looking for a book that will satisfy every literary emotion you can conjure then this book is definitely for you. I may be going out on a limb when I declare that novice writers should use this book as a handguide to great literature, but in my not so humble opinion this is true. Once you read this book your opinion of great literature will never be the same.
A thought provoking book February 2, 2010
Rosa J. Hilliard (Florissant, MO USA)
Evertime I read another book about slavery in the America's, slavery comes across as more and more evil. I have read many books on slavery in the US, I have read several regarding Haiti, and the overthrow of the French. Slavery has been a chapter or two in books I have read about the Carribean,but this is the first full book I have read about slavery in Jamaica.
It proved one thing to me,No matter where in the America's, North, Central or South America where slavery was practiced, it was the same, inhumane.
The things these women went through and still remained strong makes (to me) powerful reading.
I very rarely givee a book a 5. I have to find it super powerful to earn that rating. This was one of those books.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 29
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