Books › The book of night women
The book of night women
First published 2009 · 432 pages
A sweeping, startling immersion into the dangerous secrets and dark power of a Jamaican sugar plantation, told with breathtakingly bold prose.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like being swept into a startling, high-stakes world where every shadow holds a dangerous secret. The narrative moves with a propulsive, insistent energy, driven by a literary voice that is both breathtakingly daring and deeply suspenseful. It is a heartbreaking and dramatic immersion into the brutal reality of a nineteenth-century Jamaican sugar plantation, yet it pulses with very human emotions—desire, jealousy, and the dark, revered power of rebellion. The prose is stylish and stirring, painting vivid imagery that commands the reader's attention from the first page. It is a perfect match for readers who devour sweeping historical fiction that balances inhuman violence with profound emotional depth, offering a tour de force of storytelling that feels entirely new.
- Mood
- suspenseful
- heartbreaking
- dangerous
- tense
- Tone
- bold
- daring
- stylish
- startling
- Pace
- propulsive
- Themes
- power and rebellion · coming of age · dangerous secrets · human emotion amidst cruelty
- The writing
- Bold, insistent, and stirringly visual, driven by a deeply suspenseful and commanding literary voice.
- The arc
- Moves from the startling discovery of a dark inner power to a heartbreaking, suspenseful navigation of desire and rebellion.
- Who it's for
- Readers who crave sweeping, daring historical fiction with unforgettable voices and intense emotional stakes.
Content notes
- slavery
- inhuman violence
About the book
From a young writer who radiates charisma and talent comes a sweeping, stylish historical novel of Jamaican slavery that can be compared only to Toni Morrison's Beloved.The Book of Night Women is a sweeping, startling novel—a true tour de force of both voice and storytelling—that tells the story of a young slave woman on a sugar plantation in Jamaica at the turn of the nineteenth century, revealing a world and a culture that is both familiar and entirely new. Lilith is born into slavery, and even at her birth, the slave women around her recognize a dark power that they—and she— will come to both revere and fear. The Night Women, as they call themselves, have long been conspiring to stage a slave revolt, and as Lilith comes of age they see her as the key to and—as she reveals the extent of her power and begins to understand her own desires and feelings—potentially the weak link in their plans.Lilith's story overflows with high drama and heartbreak, and life on the plantation is rife with dangerous secrets, unspoken jealousies, inhuman violence, and very human emotion— between 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 recently grace the page—and the secret of that voice is one of the book's most suspenseful, satisfying mysteries.The real revelation of the book—the secret to the stirring imagery and insistent prose—is Marlon James himself, a young writer at once wholly in command of his craft and breathtakingly daring, spinning his magical web of humanity, race, and love, fully inhabiting the incredibly rich nineteenth-century Jamaican patois that rings with a distinctly contemporary energy.
Description from Open Library.
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