Synopses & Reviews
THE AUTHOR OF SMALL ISLAND TELLS THE STORY OF THE LAST TURBULENT YEARS OF SLAVERY AND THE EARLY YEARS OF FREEDOM IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY JAMAICA
Small Island introduced Andrea Levy to America and was acclaimed as a triumph” (San Francisco Chronicle). It won both the Orange Prize and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award, and has sold over a million copies worldwide. With The Long Song, Levy once again reinvents the historical novel.
Told in the irresistibly willful and intimate voice of Miss July, with some editorial assistance from her son, Thomas, The Long Song is at once defiant, funny, and shocking. The child of a field slave on the Amity sugar plantation, July lives with her mother until Mrs. Caroline Mortimer, a recently transplanted English widow, decides to move her into the great house and rename her Marguerite.”
Resourceful and mischievous, July soon becomes indispensable to her mistress. Together they live through the bloody Baptist war, followed by the violent and chaotic end of slavery. Taught to read and write so that she can help her mistress run the business, July remains bound to the plantation despite her freedom.” It is the arrival of a young English overseer, Robert Goodwin, that will dramatically change life in the great house for both July and her mistress. Prompted and provoked by her sons persistent questioning, Julys resilience and heartbreak are gradually revealed in this extraordinarily powerful story of slavery, revolution, freedom, and love. Andrea Levy was born in England to Jamaican parents. Her fourth novel, Small Island, won both the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction: Best of the Best. She lives in London.
Longlisted for the Orange Prize for Fiction
Longlisted for the Man Booker Prize
Andrea Levy reinvents the historical novel with her novel The Long Song, a tale of slavery and freedom in colonial Jamaica. Told in the irresistibly willful and intimate voice of Miss July, with some editorial assistance from her son, Thomas, The Long Song is at once defiant, funny, and shocking. The child of a field slave on the Amity sugar plantation, July lives with her mother until Mrs. Caroline Mortimer, a recently transplanted English widow, decides to move her into the great house and rename her Marguerite.”
Resourceful and mischievous, July soon becomes indispensable to her mistress. Together they live through the bloody Baptist war, followed by the violent and chaotic end of slavery. Taught to read and write so that she can help her mistress run the business, July remains bound to the plantation despite her freedom.” It is the arrival of a young English overseer, Robert Goodwin, that will dramatically change life in the great house for both July and her mistress. Prompted and provoked by her sons persistent questioning, Julys resilience and heartbreak are gradually revealed in this extraordinarily powerful story of slavery, revolution, freedom, and love. "When you add Levys almost Dickensian gifts for dialogue and storytelling to her humorous detachment, her ability to see race hatred as yet another twist of the English class system, its easy to understand why she has become something of a celebrity in Britain. In The Long Song, Levy turns her attention to the final days of slavery in early-19th-century Jamaica. Packaged with a preface and an afterword purporting to have been written by Mr. Thomas Kinsman, a well-to-do black printer living in Jamaica in 1898, and occasionally punctuated by editorial suggestions from that long-suffering man, the novel is presented as the memoirs of his octogenarian mother, Miss July, who was born into slavery on a sugar plantation known as Amity . . . In The Long Song, she has painted a vivid and persuasive portrait of Jamaican slave society, a society that succeeded with bravery, style and strategic patience both to outsmart its oppressors and to plant the seeds of what is today a culture celebrated worldwide."Fernanda Eberstadt, The New York Times Book Review As well as providing a history of post-abolition Jamaica, The Long Song is beautifully written, intricately plotted, humorous and earthy. In patois-inflected prose, Levy conjures the greed and licentiousness of the islands sugar impresarios and heiresses as they indulge vast meals and sexual gropingsbefore casting Jamaica aside like a sucked orange. Those who enjoyed Small Island will love The Long Song, not just for the insights on the wretched island, but as a marvel of luminous storytelling.” Ian Thomson, Financial Times "Often, the difference between a good read and a great one boils down to a single element: voice. Plot, characters, subject matter and style all factor in, but without a distinctive voice, literature is flat. No worries on that score - or any otherfor Andrea Levy's vibrant fifth novel, The Long Song, which follows her rich Whitbread and Orange Prize-winning Small Island. Where Small Island concerned race, class and empire among West Indian immigrants in postwar England, The Long Song is about the bloody death throes of slavery in Jamaica in the 1830s. It's a history that may be unfamiliar to American readers, but Levy's novel, narrated in 1898 by a former slave named Miss July, makes it come alive with urgency and relevance. The Long Song sings 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. As with American slave narratives, July's saga makes clear that slavery is a tragedy for all involved, destroying everyone's humanity . . . With this fresh, pugnacious voice, Levy has us in her thrall . . . Levy, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants who grew up in working-class North London, addresses racism at its ugliest and most virulent in this intricately imagined novel, creating a world in which little can flourish. The wonder is the spirit of indomitable dignity with which she manages to infuse her tragic tale."Heller McAlpin, San Francisco Chronicle "Andrea Levy's insightful and inspired fifth novel, The Long Song, reminds us that she is one of the best historical novelists of her generation. By employing a charming metafictional conceita printer is publishing the memoir of his mother, Julywe witness the extraordinary life of a woman who lived as a slave in Jamaica during the 19th century . . . Levy's previous novel, Small Island, is rightly regarded as a masterpiece, and with The Long Song she has returned to the level of storytelling that earned her the Orange Prize in 2004 . . . One of the most complex and revealing moments in The Long Song is the dinner party in which the servants are told to prepare an English-style Christmas feast, though few of the menu items are available . . . The Long Song is a novel for those who believe that the story of a single woman is a story of the ages, for those who understand that a slave woman's history is History, indeed."Tayari Jones, The Washington Post This is a terrific book: beautifully written and imagined, and full of surprises . . . A brilliant historical novel.” A. N. Wilson, Readers Digest "There is great skill in the way [Levy] presents characters and dialogue; she has powers of observation and an ear for language that make her books a pleasure to read."The Times Literary Supplement The Long Song is above all the female version of emancipation, told in vivid, vigorous language in which comedy, contempt and a fierce poetry are at work . . . For all that this is supposed to be the autobiography of a woman with little ink, edited by her anxious, seemly son, The Long Song is told with irresistible cunning; it is captivating, mischievous and optimistic, generating new stories and plot lines throughout the tale. July is one of Levys stubborn women who inspire both irritation and admiration. She is a splendid creation, whose wit, pride and resilience sweeten a tale that would otherwise make her white readers hang their heads in shame.” Amanda Craig, The Daily Telegraph As a story of suffering, indomitability and perseverance, it is thoroughly captivating.” Alex Clark, The Guardian (UK) "Levy gives us a new, urgent take on our past."Vogue An elegant allegory of storytelling . . . A subtly observed, beautifully written, structurally complex novelan impressive follow-up to Small Island.” Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
In the inexplicable absence of a definitive and revelatory history of Jamaicas nearly 300 years of slavery, Levy gamely steps into the void with this lively and engaging novel . . . Charming, alarming, Levys vibrant historical novel shimmers with all of the artifice and chicanery slave owners felt compelled to exert.”Booklist
Review
In The Long Song, she has painted a vivid and persuasive portrait of Jamaican slave society, a society that succeeded with bravery, style and strategic patience both to outsmart its oppressors and to plant the seeds of what is today a culture celebrated worldwide. Fernanda Eberstadt, The New York Times Book Review
Review
As well as providing a history of post-abolition Jamaica, The Long Song is beautifully written, intricately plotted, humorous and earthy. In patois-inflected prose, Levy conjures the greed and licentiousness of the island's sugar impresarios and heiresses as they indulge vast meals and sexual gropings--before casting Jamaica aside like a sucked orange. Those who enjoyed Small Island will love The Long Song, not just for the insights on the 'wretched island, ' but as a marvel of luminous storytelling. Ian Thomson, Financial Times
Review
Often, the difference between a good read and a great one boils down to a single element: voice. Plot, characters, subject matter and style all factor in, but without a distinctive voice, literature is flat. No worries on that score -- or any other -- for Andrea Levy's vibrant fifth novel, The Long Song, which follows her rich Whitbread and Orange Prize-winning Small Island. Where Small Island concerned race, class and empire among West Indian immigrants in postwar England, The Long Song is about the bloody death throes of slavery in Jamaica in the 1830s. It's a history that may be unfamiliar to American readers, but Levy's novel, narrated in 1898 by a former slave named Miss July, makes it come alive with urgency and relevance. The Long Song sings 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. As with American slave narratives, July's saga makes clear that slavery is a tragedy for all involved, destroying everyone's humanity . . . With this fresh, pugnacious voice, Levy has us in her thrall . . . Levy, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants who grew up in working-class North London, addresses racism at its ugliest and most virulent in this intricately imagined novel, creating a world in which little can flourish. The wonder is the spirit of indomitable dignity with which she manages to infuse her tragic tale. Heller McAlpin, San Francisco Chronicle
Review
Andrea Levy's insightful and inspired fifth novel, The Long Song, reminds us that she is one of the best historical novelists of her generation. By employing a charming metafictional conceit - -a printer is publishing the memoir of his mother, July -- we witness the extraordinary life of a woman who lived as a slave in Jamaica during the 19th century . . . Levy's previous novel, Small Island<>, is rightly regarded as a masterpiece, and with The Long Song she has returned to the level of storytelling that earned her the Orange Prize in 2004 . . . One of the most complex and revealing moments in The Long Song is the dinner party in which the servants are told to prepare an English-style Christmas feast, though few of the menu items are available . . . The Long Song is a novel for those who believe that the story of a single woman is a story of the ages, for those who understand that a slave woman's history is History, indeed. Tayari Jones, The Washington Post
Review
There is great skill in the way Levy presents characters and dialogue; she has powers of observation and an ear for language that make her books a pleasure to read. The Times Literary Supplement
Review
As a story of suffering, indomitability and perseverance, it is thoroughly captivating. Alex Clark, The Guardian (UK)
Synopsis
Small Island introduced Andrea Levy to America and was acclaimed as a triumph (San Francisco Chronicle). It won both the Orange Prize and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award, and has sold over a million copies worldwide. With
The Long Song, Levy once again reinvents the historical novel.
Told in the irresistibly willful and intimate voice of Miss July, with some editorial assistance from her son, Thomas, The Long Song is at once defiant, funny, and shocking. The child of a field slave on the Amity sugar plantation, July lives with her mother until Mrs. Caroline Mortimer, a recently transplanted English widow, decides to move her into the great house and rename her Marguerite.
Resourceful and mischievous, July soon becomes indispensable to her mistress. Together they live through the bloody Baptist war, followed by the violent and chaotic end of slavery. Taught to read and write so that she can help her mistress run the business, July remains bound to the plantation despite her freedom. It is the arrival of a young English overseer, Robert Goodwin, that will dramatically change life in the great house for both July and her mistress. Prompted and provoked by her son's persistent questioning, July's resilience and heartbreak are gradually revealed in this extraordinarily powerful story of slavery, revolution, freedom, and love.
Synopsis
THE AUTHOR OF SMALL ISLAND TELLS THE STORY OF THE LAST TURBULENT YEARS OF SLAVERY AND THE EARLY YEARS OF FREEDOM IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY JAMAICA
Small Island introduced Andrea Levy to America and was acclaimed as a triumph” (San Francisco Chronicle). It won both the Orange Prize and the Whitbread Book of the Year Award, and has sold over a million copies worldwide. With The Long Song, Levy once again reinvents the historical novel.
Told in the irresistibly willful and intimate voice of Miss July, with some editorial assistance from her son, Thomas, The Long Song is at once defiant, funny, and shocking. The child of a field slave on the Amity sugar plantation, July lives with her mother until Mrs. Caroline Mortimer, a recently transplanted English widow, decides to move her into the great house and rename her Marguerite.”
Resourceful and mischievous, July soon becomes indispensable to her mistress. Together they live through the bloody Baptist war, followed by the violent and chaotic end of slavery. Taught to read and write so that she can help her mistress run the business, July remains bound to the plantation despite her freedom.” It is the arrival of a young English overseer, Robert Goodwin, that will dramatically change life in the great house for both July and her mistress. Prompted and provoked by her sons persistent questioning, Julys resilience and heartbreak are gradually revealed in this extraordinarily powerful story of slavery, revolution, freedom, and love. "When you add Levys almost Dickensian gifts for dialogue and storytelling to her humorous detachment, her ability to see race hatred as yet another twist of the English class system, its easy to understand why she has become something of a celebrity in Britain. In The Long Song, Levy turns her attention to the final days of slavery in early-19th-century Jamaica. Packaged with a preface and an afterword purporting to have been written by Mr. Thomas Kinsman, a well-to-do black printer living in Jamaica in 1898, and occasionally punctuated by editorial suggestions from that long-suffering man, the novel is presented as the memoirs of his octogenarian mother, Miss July, who was born into slavery on a sugar plantation known as Amity . . . In The Long Song, she has painted a vivid and persuasive portrait of Jamaican slave society, a society that succeeded with bravery, style and strategic patience both to outsmart its oppressors and to plant the seeds of what is today a culture celebrated worldwide."Fernanda Eberstadt, The New York Times Book Review "Often, the difference between a good read and a great one boils down to a single element: voice. Plot, characters, subject matter and style all factor in, but without a distinctive voice, literature is flat. No worries on that score - or any otherfor Andrea Levy's vibrant fifth novel, The Long Song, which follows her rich Whitbread and Orange Prize-winning Small Island. Where Small Island concerned race, class and empire among West Indian immigrants in postwar England, The Long Song is about the bloody death throes of slavery in Jamaica in the 1830s. It's a history that may be unfamiliar to American readers, but Levy's novel, narrated in 1898 by a former slave named Miss July, makes it come alive with urgency and relevance. The Long Song sings 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. As with American slave narratives, July's saga makes clear that slavery is a tragedy for all involved, destroying everyone's humanity . . . With this fresh, pugnacious voice, Levy has us in her thrall . . . Levy, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants who grew up in working-class North London, addresses racism at its ugliest and most virulent in this intricately imagined novel, creating a world in which little can flourish. The wonder is the spirit of indomitable dignity with which she manages to infuse her tragic tale."Heller McAlpin, San Francisco Chronicle "Andrea Levy's insightful and inspired fifth novel, The Long Song, reminds us that she is one of the best historical novelists of her generation. By employing a charming metafictional conceita printer is publishing the memoir of his mother, Julywe witness the extraordinary life of a woman who lived as a slave in Jamaica during the 19th century . . . Levy's previous novel, Small Island, is rightly regarded as a masterpiece, and with The Long Song she has returned to the level of storytelling that earned her the Orange Prize in 2004 . . . One of the most complex and revealing moments in The Long Song is the dinner party in which the servants are told to prepare an English-style Christmas feast, though few of the menu items are available . . . The Long Song is a novel for those who believe that the story of a single woman is a story of the ages, for those who understand that a slave woman's history is History, indeed."Tayari Jones, The Washington Post
Synopsis
Finalist for the 2010 Man Booker Prize
The New York Times Book Review Notable Book of the Year
In her follow-up to Small Island, winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction, Andrea Levy once again reinvents the historical novel. Told in the irresistibly willful and intimate voice of Miss July, with some editorial assistance from her son, Thomas, The Long Song is at once defiant, funny, and shocking. The child of a field slave on the Amity sugar plantation in Jamaica, July lives with her mother until Mrs. Caroline Mortimer, a recently transplanted English widow, decides to move her into the great house and rename her “Marguerite.” Together they live through the bloody Baptist War and the violent and chaotic end of slavery. An extraordinarily powerful story, “The Long Song leaves its reader with a newly burnished appreciation for life, love, and the pursuit of both” (The Boston Globe).
About the Author
Andrea Levy was born in England to Jamaican parents. Her fourth novel, Small Island, won the Whitbread Book of the Year Award, the Orange Prize for Fiction: Best of the Best, and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize. The television adaptation of her novel won an International Emmy for best TV movie/miniseries. The Long Song was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, and she is also the author of Fruit of the Lemon, among others. She lives in London.
Reading Group Guide
1. When a young woman asked the author how one could possibly take any pride in ones ancestry when all ones ancestors were slaves, she planted the seed that would eventually become The Long Song. By telling such a story and writing this novel, Andrea Levy wanted to make her questioner feel proud of her heritage. Discuss how the novel does this.
2. In Small Island, Andrea Levy told the story of Jamaicans in London just after World War II; in the The Long Song, she goes further back, to the nineteenth century. Both books explore the relationship among the Caribbean, Jamaica, and Britain. What did you learn from The Long Song that surprised you and that you didnt know before? How do you think novels bring the past to life in a way that history books dont?
3. When she was doing research for the novel, Andrea Levy found plenty of accounts of slavery in Jamaica by white plantation owners, but the voices of the plantations slaves seemed silent or lost. In The Long Song she saw a way to fill the silence with a fictional voice, and to give us a sense of life as it was lived on a daily basis during the period. How successful is the novel in achieving both these aims?
4. July is clearly an unreliable narrator, but what does that mean? How did your feelings for her develop or change in the course of the novel?
5. Caroline Mortimer takes July away from her mother without any thought. Discuss how the relationship between master and servant develops. Does it change once July is “free”?
6. Discuss the authors use of language and of voice in the novel. How does she use humor in tackling the grim and disturbing subject of slavery?
7. Discuss the differences between mens power and womens power in The Long Song. Who are the most vulnerable characters?
8. What role does religion play in the novel? What motivates the leaders of the Baptist revolution, some of whom are tortured for their abolitionist beliefs? What does Christianity mean to the characters?
9. What does Robert Goodwin learn about the nature of work and worth? How do his beliefs about coercion and punishment change? How is this reflected in his feelings for July?
10. In the novel, how do Jamaicans perceive England and the monarchy? What does living in England or leaving England mean to them? Who honors an English identity? Who rejects it?
11. What is special about the structure of the novel? What is the effect of the format, including Thomass foreword and Julys frequent comments aimed directly at the reader?
12. What do you think happened to Emily? Discuss how July portrays motherhood and fatherhood. How do the characters handle the estrangement between mothers and their children?
13. Discuss your own family legacies. What are the chapters that no one wants to speak of, as well as the ones that spark pride?