A Bleak, Violent Novel’s Unexpected Delights
Marlon James's new novel, 'The Disappearers,' explores the lives of queer men in 1988 Kingston, Jamaica. The book is noted for its bleak, violent setting contrasted with the characters' search for community and identity through literature and pop culture.
Why it matters
The novel provides a significant literary perspective on the intersection of queer identity and systemic homophobia in a specific historical and geographic context.
For the characters in The Disappearers , seeing and being seen are matters of life and death.
Navia Jose Manuel / Agence vu / Redux August 14, 2026 Share Save This is an edition of the Books Briefing, our editors’ weekly guide to the best in books. Sign up for it here.
Before his latest book, Marlon James hadn’t written a novel set in Jamaica in more than a decade. In the years following his Booker Prize–winning A Brief History of Seven Killings , the author focused on his Dark Star Trilogy , set in a fantasy universe. But after that long literary detour, he returned to the land of his birth in his new novel, The Disappearers —which is set primarily in Kingston and follows a group of characters, all queer Jamaican men, who meet while rehearsing a play that will never be seen.
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