MARCIA DOUGLAS is the author of novels and poems and performs the one-woman show, “Natural Her-Story.” She teaches creative writing and Caribbean literature at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her The Marvellous Equations of the Dread was longlisted for the 2016 Republic of Consciousness Prize and the 2017 OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.
"A lyrical convocation of reggae, roots healing, the history of
Half Way Tree, of duppies and fearsome body-swapping, of dangerous
youthmen and deliberate revolution—here is prose steeped deep in
portents, parables, and a profusion of signs. Marcia Douglas lets
the sounds fall from on high, in prose that chants down Babylon and
confirms the coming, sweeter than can be reckoned, of Zion."
*Caribbean Beat*
"Marcia Douglas’s book is as marvellous as its title – one of the
most stunning new works of Jamaican fiction I have had the pleasure
of reading. The novel that is not unlike the island that it tries
to capture – as musical as it is brutal, and here is writing as
full of poetic heft as it is of narrative drive; even as you want
to linger and relish in the language, the novel demands that you
turn the page."
*Kei Miller*
"The spirit of Bob Marley dominates this novel, which evokes the
rich, bottom-heavy sounds of Marley's music. You can't tell the
living and the dead here without a score card, and a score card
would be too linear... Think of this book as a haunted island with
spectral voices and inscrutable mysteries."
*Kirkus*
"The Marvellous Equations of the Dread: A Novel in Bass
Riddim... has the air of a spell. A beautiful and
otherworldly book; a work of poetry steeped in history and rich
with imagination. Douglas has a way of conveying the sense of
wonder that powers the island's creative spirit. Douglas writes
with an almost Biblical diction...Weaving a complex and warmhearted
tale — one told through multiple voices — against a backdrop of
violence. She can be uproariously funny too — the patois
practically jumps off the page, and things can go from light to
dark in an instant. Her chapters are tracks that all work well as
singles, but when played together pulsate with great power."
*Juan Vidal - NPR*
"Mind-blowing."
*Publishers Weekly*
"Rhapsodic, poetic, scripturally engaged and endlessly inventive.
Not only is the electric atmosphere of Jamaica evoked with
sensuousness, delicacy and love; so is the ‘dub-side,’ a studio
yard just the other side of death, where Bob Marley and a toothless
and lisping Haile Selassie discuss the relative merits of routes to
Zion."
*Review 31*
"A magical realist journey through the history of Rastafarianism,
Bob Marley & Jamaica—not necessarily in that order. Rhapsodic,
poetic, scripturally engaged and endlessly inventive. Not only is
the electric atmosphere of Jamaica evoked with sensuousness,
delicacy and love; so is the ‘dub-side,’ a studio yard just the
other side of death, where Bob Marley and a toothless and lisping
Halle Selassie discuss the relative merits of routes to Zion."
*Review 31*
"A powerful woman-centered version of Jamaican her-story."
*SX Salon*
"Calling Marcia Douglas's new novel, The Marvellous Equations
of the Dread, "original" would be so lazy, a banal
understatement bordering on pointless. Also tempting, because the
book evades pithy description, at least one that makes any sense.
But here's a shot: Bob Marley has been reincarnated, in a manner of
speaking, as Fall-down man, joining other recently revived
ghosts—including but not limited to Marcus Garvey, Haile
Selassie, and the Queen of Sheba. They're hanging out in the clock
tower of Half Way Tree, a Kingston intersection notable more for
its history than its traffic. What are they doing there? Beyond
Jah, who knows? The Marvellous Equations is a
marvelous tour through time and Jamaica's often tumultuous history,
an ode to Rastafarianism, reggae music, and its resilient and
resolute people, all inextricably intertwined."
*Jon Foro - The Amazon Book Review*
"Miraculous."
*Matt Alston - The Believer*
"Massively creative, The Marvellous Equations of The
Dread draws from—and continues—a long Caribbean musical
tradition."
*The Millions*
"Brave and strange: in the great cosmic scheme of this book there's
constant traffic between this world and the next."
*Colin Grant - The New York Review of Books*
"Marvellous Equations of the Dread is a celebration of the
conflicted Jamaican experience. The women in Marcia Douglas’s books
are proud women: they are the descendants of Queen Nanny, the
Maroon chieftain who, according to legend, could catch the bullets
of the British soldiers between her teeth."
*The Rumpus*
"A pulsating tale revolving around the return of Bob Marley’s
spirit on a Kingston street corner dubbed Half Way
Tree—it's about the transmigration of souls, Rasta dreams, and
the powerful vibrations of consciousness passed down through
generations. A whirlwind of a novel that sways to an irresistible
beat."
*Vanity Fair*
"Marvellous Equations of the Dread harkens back to the past of
slavery, oppression, and violence to account for the situation in
Jamaica today...Mystical."
*World Literature Today*
"A vast panorama of a small corner of Kingston, a musical novel
where the music is reggae, a historical documentary set in the
present: As the illustrious and anonymous living and dead
materialize to reenact, retell, and undo their life stories, it’s
impossible to resist reading these voices out loud, adding your own
to this orchestrated hubbub."
*Eliot Weinberger*
"A rollicking, music-rich, dream-filled, polyphonic tour through
Jamaica’s past and present, both in this world and, on the
“dub-side,” beyond it, The Marvellous Equations of the
Dread is a masterpiece of linguistic and narrative
inventiveness, a contemporary literary marvel."
*John Keene*
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
