BOOK REVIEW: The Long Song; by Andrea Levy

“The Long Song” is about the bloody death throes of slavery in Jamaica in the 1830s. Told by July, a slave girl born on a Jamaican sugar plantation in the nineteenth century called Amity, this is the story of her life during and after the last years of slavery: It is the story of July’s difficult life, which she writes at the prodding of her son, Thomas, a successful printer and editor with whom she lives in Kingston. July is the child of Kitty, a giant of a woman, and the overseer Tam Dewar, and her tale begins with the casual rape of her mother by a man who then complains about Kitty’s screams nine months later during labor. A pretty girl, July is taken from her mother as a small child by the English plantation owner’s sister, Caroline, and renamed as her maid, Marguerite. With a subversive twinkle, July shows how her essentially powerless but never broken fellow house slaves mischievously get back at their oppressors the only way they can: by deliberately doing their jobs badly, including fiddling off-key and embarrassing their mistress by setting the table with bed linens for an important Christmas dinner. The tinderbox of race and slavery and sex and violence gel is July’s story. From its tantalizing opening line, “The book you are now holding within your hand was born of a craving...”, July uncoils her dramatic life. July is destined for a short and brutal existence in the cane fields. But her life is transformed by the whim of Caroline Mortimer, the plantation owner’s sister, who is beguiled by the sight of this cute black child and demands July be given to her as a present. July moves from the fetid slave huts to the luxurious great house, where she becomes a privileged house slave. Her story continues through the dying days of slavery, including the Baptist Wars – when slaves on the island were inspired to withdraw their labor for ten violent days - through to abolition, the faux freedom of the apprenticeship period, and then early liberation. We watch July grow up, survive a slave revolt and then become enmeshed in a relationship with a devoutly religious but tragically self-deluded English overseer. Six years later, July has been taught to read in order to help run the plantation. But she is still at her mistress’ beck and call in 1838 when colonial slavery finally is put to rest after 276 years. Despite glimmers of hope - including a seemingly enlightened new overseer - improvements are few and far between for the former slaves at Amity Plantation. Long Song is Andrea Levy’s first novel in six years, following the critically acclaimed and award-winning Small Island.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Long Song; by Andrea Levy