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The Book of Jamaica

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The Book of Jamaica

By: Russell Banks
Narrated by: Norman Dietz
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About this listen

"A truly excellent novel. . . . The morbidly fascinating little twists of human existence are all here: love, sex, life and death, beauty and horror—the works." — Chicago Sun-Times

In The Book of Jamaica, Russell Banks explores the complexities of political life in the Caribbean and its ever-present racial conflicts.

His narrator, a thirty-five-year-old college professor from New Hampshire, goes to Jamaica to write a novel and soon becomes embroiled in the struggles between whites and Blacks. He is especially interested in an ancient tribe called the Maroons, descendants of the Ashanti, who had been enslaved by the Spanish and then fought the British in a hundred-year war. Despite this history of oppression, the Maroons have managed to maintain a relatively autonomous existence in Jamaica. Partly out of guilt and an intellectual sense of social responsibility, Banks's narrator gets involved in reuniting two clans who have been feuding for generations. Unfortunately, his attempt ends in disaster, and the narrator must deal with his feelings of alienation, isolation, and failure.

 Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Political Science Politics & Government Women's Fiction
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If you could sum up Book of Jamaica in three words, what would they be?

Evocative, blending culture

What other book might you compare Book of Jamaica to, and why?

Bill Bryson’s African Diary - like Bill's work Banks' humour and poetic writing enables the reader to draw evocative pictures of the landscape and the people whose drama pervades through out.

Banks on the money

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Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

Going to return this as the narration is terrible and when he tries to do a jamaican accent it makes me want to vomit.

Who might you have cast as narrator instead of Norman Dietz?

Anyone who could at least sound like they cared about the story and half awake

Any additional comments?

Please Audible redo this book!

Worse Narration ever

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