Two spirits did come to me screaming, looking for their bodies, but nothing struck fear in me anymore. Nothing was struck in me, not even sadness. Not even indifference. The two spirits both ran through me and shivered. They looked at me, screamed, and vanished. They were right to scream. I would kill the dead.
Marlon James won the Booker Prize in 2015 for A Brief History of Seven Killings, a novel about the history of Jamaica and after such a prestigious literary prize, he was basically set to do whatever he wanted. People were shocked when it was announced that his new novel was going to be a fantasy novel; a “literary” author writing a “genre” novel? Well, James has pulled off something really astounding here. Black Leopard, Red Wolf is a novel with a fairly standard fantasy set-up. A mysterious man named Tracker is hired to find a young boy that’s been kidnapped by a roving band of warriors. A team of mysterious individuals assembles itself and sets out to find the boy, but why are there so many different stories about this boy? Who’s really bank-rolling this quest? Who is lying and why? So far, so good. But this book is set in a world of African mythology and James drags the fantasy genre out of its typical European milieu in order to deliver a punishing, but brilliant, epic. At nearly seven-hundred pages, this book explores a world filled with magical creatures that I’d never encountered before; these ain’t your standard issue elves & dwarves. We’ve got dirt-mermaids; we’ve got were-hyenas; we’ve got killers who walk on the ceiling and women who run down walls like water; we’ve got . . . things I can’t even describe. Most of the indescribable things come courtesy of the White Scientists, a group of men who have delved into the evils of necromancy and magic so deeply that all color has fled from their bodies. This book is a psychedelic wonderland that kind of blew my mind about every ten pages by showing me something I’d never seen before. The plot has twists and turns that will set your head spinning; at a certain point, I kind of just let it all wash over me. Things get incredibly complex as what initially seemed like a simple search-and-rescue mission take on ramifications that involve various kingdoms and realms spread across the world. The characters are all fascinating and their relationships with each other shift and change in really compelling ways as the book winds its way across this adventure.
This probably sounds like a mind-expanding and wondrous circus of magical adventure at this point and it is that, but I also have to say that this book really has to come with ALL of the trigger warnings. Part of what James is doing with the fantasy genre is dragging it right down out of the high-flung beauty and into the mud and blood and . . . well, other fluids. The violence is gripping and wonderfully written, but it’s definitely incredibly graphic. The language is stylized in an interesting way, but it’s also salted with a liberal, liberal dose of profanity. And the sexual content is graphic and typically upsetting; there’s a rape scene in this book that is probably the most disturbing thing I’ve read in . . . years. But then it is, as much as it is a fantasy novel, also a horror novel; it has an unflinching cynicism and its told by Tracker, a character already jaded before the story starts, as he sits in a prison cell at the end of the adventure. Jaded as he was before, the **** he’s seen on this quest has left him nihilistic and vicious and we can tell by his narrative voice that things are going to go very badly indeed on this trek and they certainly do. So, it comes with a content warning for sure, but there’s no way for me to get past the extreme impact the book had me. The plot is labyrinthine and mind-boggling; the characters are infuriating and compelling; the action is fast, intense and gripping; the world is constantly unfolding some new weirdness; and even the stylistics change up from time to time with part of the story suddenly being told in the style of an African folk song or some such. I honestly can’t remember the last time a book fried my brain this hardcore. This is a massive, monstrous, compelling masterpiece and James has not just lived up to the hype, he’s exceeded it. Read it now before the next volume in the trilogy (yes, I said trilogy) comes out and puts you hopelessly behind. This adventure is like no other. 4 stars.
tl;dr – gripping, horrifying, thrilling, violent, disturbing, exhilarating epic takes fantasy into the African milieu to deliver a powerful adventure tale that will entertain and haunt in equal measure. 4 stars.