He wrote plays-one was a Jamaican revision of “Cinderella”-and he drew comics, with shape-shifting monkey men and telepathic heroes. After reading “Little House in the Big Woods,” he decided that he wanted to write. He liked Greek mythology because everyone in it seemed to be naked. When James was five, other kids started calling him a sissy, and he retreated into comics and books. Both were readers: his father favored Shakespeare, and his mother loved O. Henry. His mother, a sweet and stubborn woman, rose to the rank of inspector his father, a brash but melancholy man, left the force and became a lawyer.
He had attended Sunday school as a child, with his brothers, in the nearby town of Portmore, where his family lived in a neighborhood populated by doctors and civil servants.
He was in his early thirties, living in Kingston, Jamaica, working as a graphic designer and occasionally producing photo shoots for music magazines. This content can also be viewed on the site it originates from.įifteen years ago, when Marlon James was working on his first novel, he requested an exorcism.
