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The Book of Night Women |  | Author: Marlon James
Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover
Category: Book
List Price: $26.95
Buy New: $10.65
as of 11/21/2009 01:05 CST details
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Seller: Amazon.com
Rating:  22 reviews
Sales Rank: 65227
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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Showing reviews 1-5 of 22
 Brutal... November 16, 2009
BKNYavidreader (BlackBooks, USA)
I hate to entitle this review with such a negative word.. because I thoroughly enjoyed. I found it difficult to read through, as the scenes were pretty graphic and detailed some of the darkest moments in the global human experience... what interested me the most in this book was the development of patious and the ides that language is so much a part of identity. It was an epic read and if you can stomach the truth of our world history then you will enjoy this one..
 A Must Read! September 26, 2009
Barbara Taylor (Scranton, PA United States)
THE BOOK OF THE NIGHT WOMEN is so haunting, so desperate, so unpredictable, and in the end, so necessary. I first listened to the book on CD and immediately bought the hard cover so I could savor the language all over again. Most amazingly, James manages to offer hope in the bleakest of circumstances. A fascinating read!
Intense August 30, 2009
Mark Levy
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Night Women is a powerful book, at times so intense I had to stop reading and remember to breathe.
Very engaging read August 29, 2009
JB (New York United States)
Marlon James is a talented and imaginative writer and I found this story engaging from start to finish. I love the book, but found some of the dialogue uncouth and filthy. The frequent use of the c**t and p***y and other words of this sort were often jarring, unnecessary, and sometimes out of context. And what is this preoccupation with the genetalia?
While I am aware that Slaves would use the swear words from their native languages as well as those they picked up from their oppressors, I really don't believe they consistently spoke in this manner as this novel would have us believe. The result is that the novel, while still quite enjoyable, loses its opportunity to be a serious work, and instead becomes comedic in parts...I laughed, was embarrassed and so forth, but after page 40 I realized this was not going to be serious.
There were other issues, like the "Three Wheel Coffin" with the three john crows...that is a legend that was born in the late 1960s....The book is rife with anachronistic references which are quite distracting. Also, some of the slang used in the book is relatively new, born out of present day mass culture. Slaves would not have been speaking in this manner in the 1700s or 1800s.
I would have given five stars if the curse words were less distracting...however I did find them overdone and off-putting at times, hence my four stars. That said, still the book was fun, the characters vivid, the story intriguing...James has talent and a sense of humor.
A Powerful Tale of Slavery, Freedom, Identity, and Magic June 16, 2009
Peter Balaskas (LA,CA)
Marlon James's exotic debut, "John Crow's Devil," took the reader on a fantastic journey into a world filled with magic realism and intense intrigue. His narrative voice transcended beyond the common tale of good versus evil into epic proportions. I couldn't imagine how James could rise to the "next step," for lack of a better term.
Then, I finished reading his latest novel, "The Book of Night Women," a story about a mulatto slave named Lilith who lives on a Jamaican plantation during the 18th century, and how she utilizes her body, willpower, and a little bit of magic to gain some sense of identity, which remains an enigma to her like a Chinese puzzle box. And I was stunned in how alive James's characters were, including the main protagonist, Lilith, the other Night Women (especially her mentor and surrogate mother, Homer), the other slaves and the plantation owners. His descriptive power conjures each distinctive voice and face for the reader. And as he has shown with his debut, his narrative voice is just as eloquent, if not more so. The narrator possesses a Jamaican dialect and it stretches the reader's ability to understand all the events that occur. By doing so, we enter the world James/Narrator creates, making all senses come alive. It was indeed a combination of Toni Morrison (with regard to character and narrative voice) meets Joseph Conrad (concerning the vivid descriptive power of setting and atmosphere).
With these two novels, as well as his mastery with the short story, James is on the rise as being one of the most prominent authors of our generation.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 22
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