I finished Black Leopard Red Wolf by Marlon James yesterday and I feel like I’ve lived a lifetime inside this epic oral history fantasy novel, and yet I don’t really know what to say about it. I can’t figure out how to quantify why, but this book never fully grabbed me, even as I dedicated nearly the entire weekend to traversing its pages. There’s this feeling of “I’m so excited to be reading this” that just didn’t ever hit, and I don’t know if it’s worth it to pick apart why that might be the case, or just chalk it up to the current moment not always being an ideal reading atmosphere. ⁣
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James writes huge stories, and I feel kind of hungover on this book, very much reminiscent of my days post finishing A Brief History of Seven Killings. The structure of this novel, where Tracker narrates aloud before an offscreen inquisitor, was exciting, as was the centering of a cast dominated by diverse queer Black men. The power struggle that eventually unfolds was intriguing, and I think some of where the book lost me was that Tracker kind of doesn’t care about all that, which makes him a somewhat less engaging character to follow though this story, even as I came to care so deeply for him and ached alongside his pain. ⁣