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3.5 

The Marvellous Equations of the Dread: A Novel in Bass Riddim

By Marcia Douglas
The Marvellous Equations of the Dread: A Novel in Bass Riddim by Marcia Douglas digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

The ancestors have awakened. Somebody has called them. The long-dead are stirring. Jah ways are mysterious ways.

“Is me—Bob. Bob Marley.” Reincarnated as homeless Fall-down man, Bob Marley sleeps in a clock tower built on the site of a lynching in Half Way Tree, Kingston. The ghosts of Marcus Garvey and King Edward VII are there too, drinking whiskey and playing solitaire. No one sees that Fall-down is Bob Marley, no one but his long-ago love, the deaf woman, Leenah, and, in the way of this otherworldly book, when Bob steps into the street each day, five years have passed. Jah ways are mysterious ways, from Kingston’s ghettoes to London, from Haile Selaisse’s Ethiopian palace and back to Jamaica, Marcia Douglas’s mythical reworking of three hundred years of violence is a ticket to the deep world of Rasta history. This amazing novel—in bass riddim—carries the reader on a voyage all the way to the gates of Zion.

7 Reviews

3.5
“This was a stunning undertaking molding the history, music, movement, people, and spirit that is my island. Updated December 16, 2020 What I saw and felt after reading 5 pages of this story was an identity that I was born into, that I learned, and that I am still discovering; the fights and triumphs, the ever moving-forward tenacity, the hunger and the drive, the light and the dark; my people, my island. Much like my island, there are mysteries still to be uncovered, there is history in every one of us and what Douglas does with this novel is to invite you to continue your i-ducation. To enter and know that you will never know all, that there are still depths and heights and widths to be known, to meet, to hear, to see, to touch. The spirituality that reaches out from these pages from Riva Mumma to the fallen angel right back to the Taino woman who dreamed of what was and is to come is palpable, and it is impossible not to shiver with awareness and a communal connection while reading Half Way Tree with its four-way connection-direction is the culmination point where reality and spirituality exist side by side and hand in hand; where the duality of existence is a tableau of people, actions, music, death, life, and the universe. This book was written for us, Jamaicans, for our history, our bones, our spirit, our whole self. Every revelation is a balm and every memory a song, every page turned is a testament of us, to us, for us. Feel the I-brations from the roots of that silk cotton tree through the bones of our feet into the very depths of our souls. Jah Live. Marcia Douglas' 'The Marvelous Equations of the Dread' revolves around a Bob Marley back from the dead, a homeless fallen angel, a single mother, and Haile Selassie as some sort of celestial spirit. Yet all this seems to work, and Douglas creates what can only be described as a love letter to the Rastafarian Movement: the language, the beliefs and the livity of their teachings. Another interesting aspect of this novel is the fact that music plays an important role. Each chapter begins with some part of the creative process of making music. A truly unique literary experience.”

About Marcia Douglas

Marcia Douglas was born in the UK, and grew up in Kingston, Jamaica. The author of novels, poems, and essays, she is the recipient of awards and fellowships from Creative Capital, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Whiting Foundation, and a UK Poetry Book Society Recommendation. The Marvellous Equations of the Dread was longlisted for the 2016 Republic of Consciousness Prize and the 2017 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature. She is a College Professor of Distinction at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

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