The Long Song: Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2010: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize

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Slavery is a subject that has inspired some magnificent fiction (think of Toni Morrison's Beloved or Valerie Martin's Property), but I had some misgivings: might it not, in this case, make for over-serious writing, especially for a novelist as comically inclined as Levy? But she dares to write about her subject in an entertaining way without ever trivialising it and The Long Song reads with the sort of ebullient effortlessness that can only be won by hard work. The Long Song is simultaneously the life-affirming story of one woman’s battle to survive in terrible circumstances, and a tribute to the legions of slaves who did more than suffer and die, but also managed to squeeze all they possibly could out of the bleakest of circumstances.’ Dowell, Ben. "Hayley Atwell, Lenny Henry and Tamara Lawrance cast in new BBC period drama The Long Song". Radio Times. 13 July 2018.

Tamara Lawrance, Haley Atwell, & More to Star in BBC One's The Long Song". Broadway World. 13 July 2018. The framing is Jamaican printer-publisher Thomas Kinsman’s attempt to persuade centenarian Miss July to tell her story for his book of slave narratives. Her participation is complicated by a reluctance to accept the term “slavery” and caginess about her personal and working lives, the script alert to present questions of who has the right to relate experience and to what purpose such stories are told. This vivid and disturbing version of The Long Song is further compensation for a flow of novels cruelly shortened. The Long Song has an unusual format for a historical novel. Part memoir, part oral history, it is led by July, the narrator, who is detailing an account of her life on a Jamaican plantation, which is then filtered through her son, who is writing her account and experiences on her behalf. It is often non-linear and, at points, Levy deviates with interludes and interruptions, where the two discuss the presentation of the story. What did you think of this format - how did it serve your reading experience and your understanding of July’s experience? Why do you think Levy chose to write in this manner?

Many of the characters in The Long Song subvert expectations. July is blunt, outspoken, and short-tempered. Others that work on the plantation often feign stupidity to the plantation owners - they place bed sheets onto dining tables while those who are accomplished musicians ruin dinner parties and embarrass their hosts. These characters are not simply reduced to their suffering. Discuss the point Levy is trying to make by developing such well-rounded and complex characters. The Long Song is written as a memoir by an elderly Jamaican woman living in early 19th-century Jamaica during the final years of slavery and the transition to freedom that took place thereafter. It tells the tale of a young slave girl, July, who lives at Amity – a sugarcane plantation. She lived through the 1831 Baptist War, and then the beginning of freedom. Her mother, Kitty; the slaves working the plantation land; and the owner of the plantation, the white woman Caroline Mortimer, are other characters in the novel. [1] Themes [ edit ] Fellow house slave to July at Amity, and patronised by July. She has her vengeance in episode three. John Howarth, played by Leo Bill Kellaway, Kate (7 February 2010). "The Long Song by Andrea Levy". The Observer. London . Retrieved 12 March 2015.

With the story told through the prism of July’s memory, we are led to question how much of the story is accurate. At times she recalls events, despite not personally bearing witness to them. July is presenting a collective memory of events that happened to a group of people - she fills in gaps, embellishing tales while drawing on the experiences of others. Did you feel, or question, while reading, if there was any unreliable narration from July? Ultimately, does it matter? Jones, Tayari. "Book review: 'The Long Song,' by Andrea Levy". Washington Post . Retrieved 12 March 2015. verifyErrors }}{{ message }}{{ /verifyErrors }}{{ As a child, Caroline Mortimer takes July away from the plantation fields and her mother, Kitty. She ‘adopts’ her, renaming her Marguerite, and using her as a housemaid. How does the relationship between July and Caroline evolve as the novel progresses? Is Kitty’s life now ‘better’ as a housemaid than as a slave working in the fields?Violence and brutality run through the novel and Levy opens with a serious sexual assault, from which the novel’s narrator, July, is born. Discuss how gender plays a role in the novel and its wider historical events. Do you think women were more vulnerable than men?

I wanted there to be joy in this book; fun, as well. I had to tread a fine line. It was never going to be ‘Carry On Up the Plantation’, but also I didn’t want it to be just so harrowing that nobody could read it. I wanted a book that everyone could read and everyone could enjoy. An additional sting in the tragedy of the death of Andrea Levy at the age of 62 was that an author whose work displays a rare combination of compelling narrative and historical urgency had time for only five novels. Caroline is a white mistress at Amity and the plantation owner’s sister. She is responsible for taking July from the cotton fields (‘Look how cute the little one is’, she says before callously removing her from her mother). Caroline teaches July to read and write so she can help her run the business. She is deeply flawed and becomes unknowingly dependent on July.This is July’s story; we see her from birth to old age, and she is the narrator of her own past. Passionate, wilful, and determined, she is also richly humorous, and a wily survivor. Separated from her mother as an infant, she learns first how to handle, and then how to manipulate, her mistress Caroline. The Guardian: ‘I started to realise what fiction could be. And I thought, wow! You can take on the world’ The novel explores the complex dynamics between enslaved individuals and their captors. Despite the gulf between them, their lives run in parallel, tightly entwined. How does the novel depict power imbalances and the effects of oppression on both sides? The book covers significant periods in history, including the 1831-1832 Baptist Wars and the 1838 abolition of slavery. Discuss the portrayal of resistance and rebellion in the novel across these periods and the impact on the characters and their quest for freedom. Profiling the life and work of Andrea Levy, the best-selling author of Small Island, who died in February 2019.

Andrea Levy’s bittersweet novel about the last days of slavery in Jamaica is powerful and intimate - and full of mischievous surprise.

The Long Song is a historical novel by Andrea Levy published in 2010 that was the recipient of the Walter Scott Prize. It was Levy's fifth and final novel, following the 2004 publication of Small Island. In December 2018, a three-part television adaptation of the same name was broadcast on BBC One; The Long Song was aired on PBS in February 2021. A field slave at Amity plantation and mother of July. She’s a strong, stoic slave of few words, who suffers deeply when her child July is stolen from her. She endures heroically, and is capable of unbending love, loyalty and self-sacrifice. Speaking on condition that the recording would only be released after her death, Andrea Levy gave an in-depth interview to oral historian Sarah O’Reilly for the British Library’s Authors’ Lives project in 2014. Drawing on this recording, along with comments from friends, family and collaborators, this programme explores Levy’s changing attitude towards her history and her heritage and how it is intimately bound up with her writing.