The Book of Night Women by Marlon James.
The epigraph in the book “Sugbon kini a le fi be eni ti ikooko pa iya re je?” translates to But what can we do if someone kills his mother? in the Yoruba language.
The book begins with the birth of Lilith to a 13-year-old woman in 1785 who dies upon her birth in a Jamaican sugar plantation. “A black baby wiggling in blood on the floor with skin darker than midnight but the greenest eyes anybody ever done see.” This clearly shows that Lilith’s mother was raped by a white man and she bled to death when giving birth. She grows into a spirited child, she kills a Johnny jumper when he tries to get her way with her which leads to her being taken in by Homer(the lead house slave) and be hidden in the cellar.
Through Homer, Lilith gets the opportunity to join the Night Women, a sisterhood, who are six slave women born of a white man to a black mother, the state overseer, Jack Wilkins. They met at night in the caves to plan and plot the revolt as they feel too much blood of black people has been spilled. They plan a revolt between multiple estates in Jamaica inspired by Barbados revolt that led the slaves to be free and govern themselves.
A tragic love story of forbidden love between master and slave that ends in tragedy. The use of Obeah and Myal in the planning of the revolt. How it is used to heal the slaves who are beaten or raped. How these practices are used against the masters making them go mad.
This is a book about the history of slavery. How black people were taken from the dark continent into slavery and the trials and tribulations they went through. It shows what the slave thought of the master and vice versa. It's a tragic story, a story of love and hate. This by far, apart from Woman at Point Zero, has to be the darkest and the most painful book I have read.
I had a bit of difficulty at first since the book is written mostly in Patois and British English. However, it is this writing style is that stood out the most and I love that James did not take sides and showed how the master was cruel to the master and how the revolt of the slaves was detrimental to both.
