![]() ![]() Levy makes it look not very difficult at all, because she is a gifted writer whose prose is a pleasure to read. The subject has an inbuilt force and power how difficult can it be? Perhaps it is better (and worse) put like this: another slave trade novel is like another Holocaust novel. ![]() This second thought cruelly exposes my boneheadedness as I don’t think I’ve even read any other slave trade novels. The Long Song appealed to me less than Levy’s other books because of my previously stated prejudice against historical fiction, and because I wondered how much another fictional investigation of the slave trade could tell me. And even then, not until the very last minute. I thought her last novel ( Small Island) a bizarre omission from the Booker shortlist in its year (2004), but despite my admiration for it, I wasn’t moved to read her new one until it was shortlisted for this year’s Booker. For Andrea Levy I might well repeat my introduction to Damon Galgut’s In a Strange Room. ![]()
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