Witness and Storytelling Theme Analysis

A Brief History of Seven Killings is a work of historical fiction based on real events, yet in its fictionalization of reality, the novel calls into question whether it is possible to understand history as a single narrative. The book features fourteen narrators, and together they tell different versions of the action taking place over five days. That each section of the novel covers only a single day can be hard to believe, given the amount of activity and detail recorded by the many different narrative perspectives. This rich form of storytelling recreates the busy, chaotic feeling of a city, and particularly of ghettoes like those described in the novel, where action unfolds as a result of the constant collision and interaction between many different people, each with their own complex storyline. By recreating the feel of the city through its polyphonic narrative style, Seven Killings emphasizes the randomness of history and collapses the distinction between major historical events and uneventful days in the lives of ordinary people.

The narrative revolves around certain key events, such as the shooting at the Singer’s house, the Smile Jamaica concert, the Jamaican general elections, the death of the Singer, and the death of Josey Wales. However, these events come in and out of focus depending on which character is narrating, and at many points, the main action of the novel is crowded out by other details. These other details become particularly prominent due to the fact that many of the characters narrate in a stream-of-consciousness style; for example, Bam-Bam’s narration of the shooting at the Singer’s house mixes observations about the actual facts of the shooting with Bam-Bam’s own fears, desires, cravings, and daydreams. Thus while the multiple perspectives create a richness and complexity to the overall narrative, the chaotic web of information within each narrative perspective further destabilizes the centrality of any one character, event, or idea to the novel as a whole.

The novel also draws attention to the process of deciding how to construct a story through the character of Alex Pierce, a journalist for Rolling Stone. Alex begins the novel as a somewhat hapless figure with the grand ambition of telling the story of Jamaica through a profile of the Singer. He hopes to interview the Singer but struggles to gain access to him, and when he does finally have a chance at conducting the interview, he realizes he doesn’t know what to ask and ends up leaving the Singer’s house just before the shooting takes place. In this sense, Alex embodies a foolish, failed version of storytelling, in that his idea of the story he wants to tell precedes his actual knowledge of the reality around him.

However, over the course of the novel Alex develops into a far more capable journalist, in part because he decides to draw on the technique developed by the journalist Gay Talese of creating a profile of the Singer through descriptions of the people and climate surrounding the Singer. In this way, Alex contextualizes the Singer, thereby rendering his story more accurate. Of course, this technique is also used in Seven Killings itself, and the title of the essay series Alex publishes in The New Yorker is also called “A Brief History of Seven Killings.” This suggests a connection between Alex and Marlon James, which could be interpreted as a gesture of humility on James’ part. Perhaps in evoking an affinity between himself and an initially foolish writer, James seeks to undermine his own authority, reminding readers that the version of events he creates in the novel is inevitably flawed and should not necessarily be interpreted as truth.

The novel emphasizes that witnessing and storytelling are potentially dangerous acts. Both Alex and Nina are forced to flee Jamaica after they come to learn that it was Josey who shot the Singer. Interestingly enough, the reason Josey does not want anyone to know that it was he who shot the Singer is not because he fears being sent to prison, but rather because of the shame and scandal it would bring to have it discovered that he did not succeed in killing his target. Alex ultimately evades punishment for knowing this information, but ends up being punished for witnessing and storytelling anyway when Eubie gruesomely forces him, under torture, to make changes to his New Yorker article about Jamaica. On the other hand, Nina, in disguise as Millicent, ends the novel with the sudden possibility that she will not be punished for what she has witnessed. When she sees a newspaper headline declaring Josey dead, her secret knowledge no longer poses a threat to her life. The fact that Nina comes across this information by chance in a newspaper again emphasizes the randomness of history.

The final moment of the novel occurs when Millicent/Nina is back at home when she calls her sister, Kimmy, and the final word is Nina asking: “Kimmy?”. The fact that the novel ends at the beginning of a conversation is significant. A sense of anticipation emerges from the question mark, making readers aware that although the story being told in Seven Killings might be over, another one is beginning. Just as history is constructed through a somewhat arbitrary focus on certain people and events, storytelling is also arbitrary in that it involves imposing beginnings and endings on the infinitely unfolding progression of life.