Art conquers all: The Disappearers by Marlon James, reviewed
Gothic fiction is full of Jekylls and Hydes. For every castle, there is a dungeon; for every locked door, a hidden chamber; and for every repressed secret, there is a ghost who won’t keep quiet. In his Booker--shortlisted novel The Disappearers, Marlon James brings the Gothic to Jamaica. Built on the outcrop of a vast underwater mountain range, at the depths of which are some of the most hostile conditions on earth, it is a place where being gay is also a matter of survival. If countries have basements, then Jamaica’s goes a long way down. In an abandoned house in Kingston at the height of the 1980s Aids crisis, eight queer men meet to rehearse John Herbert’s gay prison play, Fortune and Men’s Eyes.
