Marlon James Describes His Latest Book As a Gay Revenge Thriller

This article first appeared in Book Gossip, a newsletter about what the literati are really thinking. Sign up here to get it in your inbox every two weeks.

In light of The Disappearers’s publication day, we’re recirculating Book Gossip’s interview with Marlon James from earlier this year. Set in late-’80s to early ’90s Jamaica, the novel follows eight gay play actors who, in the lead-up to a performance, suffer a violent attack that leaves one of them dead. Polyphonic and epic, the novel delves into the characters’ quest for authenticity, artistic freedom, and survival in the wake of tragedy. James’s close narration imbues the book with intimacy, not to mention humor. The author summed up the themes of his latest tome this way: “Be gay. Do crime. Get revenge.”

1. 
The book you’ve reread the most often?

God, I think it’s a tie between Toni Morrison’s Song of Solomon and William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. I’m pretty sure I’ve read them an equal amount of times. At least four.

2. 
Finish the sentence: I can’t write without _____.

Listening to jazz first. Usually for about an hour. Imani Perry talks in her book Black in Blues about how jazz and blues can set a scene for you to create, and I find jazz does that for me. I listen in my office, sometimes on vinyl, sometimes just on Spotify, usually to the same people: Alice Coltrane, John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Pharoah Sanders.

3. 
Recount a recurring dream.

My most recurring dream, funny enough, is my only time I ever have a lucid dream. Every time I have a lucid dream, it’s the same: It’s me at home suddenly being able to leap tall buildings, like in the early version ofSuperman. I keep coming home, and just as I’m about to see my mother, I wake up. But it’s a dream where I go, Crap. I’m dreaming. I can do stuff here I can’t do in real life. So I can leap tall buildings, but I can never seem to get home.

4. 
The last album you listened to all the way through.

Jeff Parker, The Way Out of Easy. He used to be in this band Tortoise, which was a very big alternative band in the ’90s and early 2000s. Now he’s a jazz guitarist, and that album he did with his quartet. It’s my favorite album for the past two years.

5. 
How many hours a day do you write and where?

I keep work hours, so I usually write for around eight hours a day. Usually it’s in my home office. I also rent out a room in the novelist John Wray’s house — you guys did a story on it. Both rooms are overrun with books. I can play music at volume and be left alone. It’s usually quiet. My partner, Nicholas Boggs, is a writer, and when I’m up there, I’m around writers. So I’m always in a writing community regardless of where I am.

6. 
Describe your latest book without revealing the plot.

Be gay. Do crime. Get revenge. That’s it. 

7. 
The book you wish you’d written.

I wish I’d written Open Throat, by Henry Hoke. That’s the more recent book. There are also the all-times: Sula, The Chaneysville Incident, and The North China Lover.

8. 
A director, living or dead, you’d most like to see adapt one of your books.

François Ozon. I don’t think he adapts a lot of stuff, but he’s really good at capturing how good people become bad. 

9. 
Describe your reading habits in three words.

Morning, caffeine, outside. 

10. 
When was the last time you reread your first book?

My God, people do that? I have never reread a thing I’ve written. I keep thinking I’m going to find typos. It’s going to make me feel bad. 

11. 
The writer you’d most like to have a conversation with, living or dead?

Jean Rhys — if she’s sober. 

12. 
What was the last meal you cooked, and who was it for?

Two days ago, I cooked pasta with mussels in tomato sauce, which I made from scratch. It was for my partner because he’s been on book tour and he came back. It’s a long tour. I cook around three to four times a week. 

13. 
Your most successful tool/method/substance/ritual for getting unblocked?

I’m one of those jerks who say they never get blocked. But I really never do. I think the reason why is that I’m constantly reading when I’m writing. So before I even realize I’m blocked, there is a book I’m reading that gives me a way out. When I read back my novels — when editing, that is — I can sometimes tell what I was reading at a certain point that got me through it. There’s a part in A Brief History of Seven Killings where it was Mrs. Dallowaythat got me through it because I realized I had to be both internal and external at the same time but I didn’t want to be so totally stream of consciousness. And Mrs. Dalloway provided a way.

14. 
Your vice, if you identify as having one?

Procrastination. I don’t know where I stand as a writer, but I am the greatest procrastinator of my generation. The problem, also, is that I write a lot of historical and fantasy stuff that needs a lot of research. I will research to not write a book. I researched A Brief History for three years.

What is my sexy vice? I don’t smoke, and I don’t drink. I doomscroll way too much. I’m kind of disappointed. I have no sexy vices. 

Even though I’m not supposed to, every two weeks me and a friend go find the best smashburger in the city. Time Out magazine used to have this thing where they had the 20 best burgers in New York, and I used to follow it religiously. And, without fail, I never like the burger. It’s always something else on the menu that my friend is eating and I go, “Let’s switch burgers.” I had one a few weeks ago. I can’t remember the name of the place, but it was in Gowanus, which is shocking. I don’t usually put good food with Gowanus. Don’t come for me, Gowanus people.

15. 
The last thing that really made you laugh.

Colman Domingo on Saturday Night Live. Especially the “Fashion District Robbery” skit when he plays the teacher, D’artagnan Meringue. There’s a line where the reporter says, “You’re getting smoke in my face.” And he says, “You’re getting your face in my smoke.”

16. 
Your favorite piece of book gossip, whether historical or current.

My Lord, that one is way too scandalous. The problem is a lot of the good book gossip is dead gossip. Like when you realize just how scandalous and nasty the British writers were. I actually have no idea. I’ve been locked in a bunker writing this book.

I love the idea that John Cheever used to get fully dressed, then take the elevator down to the furnace, take all his clothes off, and then go to write. That’s a whole level of masochism that I just can’t understand. 

17. 
A writer you want to sound like:

I kind of want to sound like Maria McCann, the way she wrote As Meat Loves Salt, which is one of the last books I read that I wish I wrote. Of course, I always want to sound like Toni Morrison. But sometimes I wish I sounded like Günter Grass — that sort of absurdist I’m too smart for my own good kind of prose.

18. 
A writer you actually sound like:

When I read my stuff, it doesn’t remind me of fiction. It reminds me of Gen-X, early-’90s journalism because I used to read a lot of magazines like Spin and Rolling Stone and Details and those writers like Joan Morgan and Scott Poulson-Bryant and Alan Light. I still think a lot of my writing comes from those guys.

19. 
The question you wish more people asked you?

Why Buffy the Vampire Slayer is my favorite TV show of all time.

Why is Buffy the Vampire Slayer your favorite TV show?

It’s one of only three shows I’ve ever watched an episode of and gone, I wish I wrote that. The other two are Six Feet Under and I May Destroy You.

How do you feel about the reboot being canceled?

I’m kind of distraught, but maybe it’s for the best. I mean, Xander died and I’m not sure he can be replaced. Also, I think the great thing about Buffy is that it had one of the most satisfying endings a TV show has ever had. A magnificent show ending magnificently. Maybe it’s fate that it couldn’t be rebooted.

Do you think a lot about the endings of your books?

No. Which is why I can’t end them. My books don’t end; they just stop.