John Crow's Devil by Marlon James (2005)

Sometimes

you check out

a book

from the library

only to have it

gather dust

on your desk

for 13 months,

but then

when you finally

open it, you can’t

put it down

until it’s done.

Such was the case

for John Crow’s Devil,

the debut novel

by Marlon James,

a book I read

in a couple of days

upon finally cracking

it open.

This novel was

beautifully brutal.

Cormac McCarthy

and Salman Rushdie

carrying haunted bibles

around the Caribbean.