The Disappearers
A Novel
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4.3 • 10 Ratings
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 BOOKER PRIZE
“This masterpiece is the novel of the decade, if not the century... The Disappearers places [James] near the front of the line, a decade or two from now, for the Nobel Prize.” –The New York Times
“Harrowing, hilarious, magnificent …this novel will be read decades from now, pored over in seminars and bookmarked on subway commutes … [James’] defiant queer epic belongs to us all.” –The Boston Globe
“Among Marlon James’s most ambitious and history-making works… James is a singular literary talent.” –Booker Prize judge's citation
From Marlon James, author of the Booker Prize–winning A Brief History of Seven Killings: the electrifying story of the murder of a gay man in 1980s Jamaica and its far-reaching consequences
In 1988, eight men in Kingston, Jamaica, begin rehearsals for a play. Though strangers to one another, they share an inescapable truth: All of them are gay. And they live in a world that refuses to accept them.
One night the men are savagely beaten and one of them is killed. As their bodies heal, the survivors begin to face the hatred and contempt that the violence laid bare. Some try to ignore what happened. Others double down on retribution. Some disappear completely.
In this spellbinding novel, Marlon James has written a propulsive crime story that is also a deeply human account of connection and acceptance. Full of fascinating characters, biting humor, and unapologetic sex, The Disappearers is both a thrilling page-turner and a finely etched portrait of queer life.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
Eight men, one bloody night, and 17 years of aftershocks propel this ferocious novel from Booker Prize winner Marlon James. In the late 1980s, after a group of Kingston men answer a casting call for Jamaica’s first openly gay play, a homophobic mob storms a rehearsal and beats them mercilessly. When two of the actors go missing after the attack, fellow troupe members Eddy Porteous and Jordan Brown investigate what became of them. James gives each of the book’s five parts a different voice, including restless teenager Eddy’s endearing journal, a run of letters from the play’s exiled director, and a section told from the perspective of the hateful attackers that is absolutely chilling. The dialogue is sharp and seamlessly swings from devastating to darkly humorous. A daring novel about queer life, The Disappearers describes the enduring cost of a single night of violence.
Customer Reviews
Disappointed
After an over the top review in the NYT I went for it…. and I want my money back. This is an over the top novel filled with more than necessary explicit sex scenes in between total outrage and violence page after page. The writing is excellent, yes, but interestingly there is little characterization for any of these people and, when it’s broken down, it becomes stereotypical, filled with parents who hated what their children were , a culture that hated , and self hate. These are themes often used over the years. And after getting half way through I just gave up. Not at all the amazing book I was expecting. An important theme, but one that’s been done multiple ways already, and better. This is an author whose anger and rage take over his writing in this book. An editor was needed.