Description:

From Publishers Weekly

A distinctive narrative voice and a beguiling plot distinguish Levy's fifth novel (after Orange Prize–winning Small Island). A British writer of Jamaican descent, Levy draws upon history to recall the island's slave rebellion of 1832. The unreliable narrator pretends to be telling the story of a woman called July, born as the result of a rape of a field slave, but it soon becomes obvious that the narrator is July herself. Taken as a house slave when she's eight years old, July is later seduced by the pretentiously moralistic English overseer after he marries the plantation's mistress; his clergyman father has assured him that a married man might do as he pleases. Related in July's lilting patois, the narrative encompasses scenes of shocking brutality and mass carnage, but also humor, sometimes verging on farce. Levy's satiric eye registers the venomous racism of the white characters and is equally candid in relating the degrees of social snobbery around skin color among the blacks themselves, July included. Slavery destroys the humanity of everyone is Levy's subtext, while the cliffhanger ending suggests (one hopes) a sequel. (May)
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From

Before opening a book on slavery, many readers must brace themselves, knowing from past experience the emotional toll it is likely to take. The Long Song, however, strikes an altogether different tone from that of Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987) or Marlon James's _The Book of Night Women (HHHH May/June 2009). Peppered with humor and her trademark wit, Levy's fifth novel paints "a vivid and persuasive portrait of Jamaican slave society" (New York Times_) that is highly readable and rarely depressing. Only the Miami Herald critic disagreed, describing some characters as "caricatures" and the author's light tone as ill-conceived. Still, most agreed with the Boston Globe's_ _assessment that "[t]hrough all her trials July's joie de vivre shines."