The Long Song

The Long Song, author Andrea Levy’s fifth book is not to be missed. Levy, the daughter of Jamaican parents and a native of England, writes with such subtle humor and such a sin­gular voice that one almost forgets that the subject is slavery and all the evils that trail in its wake. The Long Song recently won the Walter Scott Prize for His­torical Fiction 2011 and film options as well. The novel was also short-​​listed for the 2011 Booker Prize.

The Long Song is a novel of an auto­bi­og­raphy, which is another way of saying that the novel is about the book that a Jamaican slave woman is writing about her life. The slave’s name is July, yes, exactly like the month. The reader is intro­duced to the auto­bi­og­raphy in the novel’s Forward, which is penned by her son, a publisher-​​editor: “The book you are now holding within your hand was born of a craving. My mama had a story…” The son’s voice occa­sionally inter­jects as editor to cajole, correct and encourage, so that their rela­tionship (a miracle in itself) becomes a telling within a telling. July’s story, from her con­ception as the result of her mother’s rape, to the revolt of Jamaican slaves, to the aftermath of the end of slavery in Jamaica, to the every expla­nation for the writing of her story, is told in a voice not heard since Kunta Kinte in Roots. July’s voice is old, it is music and it is the long song.

The author writes of Jamaican slavery, not American, and the com­par­isons inevitably sought by American readers will be easily rec­og­nized. But there are dif­fer­ences, mostly belonging to the farmers, the slave owners from the United Kingdom – England, Scotland, Ireland. The fact that Jamaica is an island of only 4,242 square miles with owners and slaves alike iso­lated from the rest of the world, say com­pared to Mis­sis­sippi, 48,434 square miles and sur­rounded by other slave states, only inten­sifies the differences.

What mother does not have her secrets? But what trust to reveal those secrets to her son, who reminds her that ”words have a power that can nev­er­theless cower even the largest man to gib­berish.” Levy’s gift as a writer is star­tling and pow­erful as when July is taken from her mother by the sister of her owner. “Oh, she’s adorable,” Car­oline said again. “Can I take her?” She is not addressing July’s mother, she is asking her brother who answers, “Yes, if she’ll amuse you.” No screaming, no tears from July’s mother, she is simply taken, like picking out a piece of candy.

July’s tale of abuse, of love and hate, aban­donment, despair, humility and courage, is as fresh as slavery is old. This novel is a sequel to Levy’s pre­vious novel, Small Island, (winner of the White­bread Book of the Year and the Orange Prize for Fiction) and I for one, based on The Long Song, won’t hes­itate to read it out of order.

Buy The Long Song: A Novel locally or look online at Amazon​.com, Powell’s Books, or through an IndieBound book­store.