▪️ EDITOR’S NOTE: This piece was first published in American Thinker. You can link to it here.▪️
A fellow by the name of Marlon James has written a new book: The Disappearers. When you visit Barnes & Noble’s website or use their app, you’ll see it’s the very first book in a row of books under the heading “Everyone’s Talking About.” It’s been featured there, in that prime real estate, for several weeks.
Gosh, I think, it must be pretty good.
Clicking on it takes you to the book’s sales page where there are the usual reviews from both professional reviewers and the public at large. “AN INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER” the all-caps headline announces. Then another one: “LONGLISTED FOR THE 2026 BOOKER PRIZE.”
Okay, okay, I get it. It’s garnered attention from the jaw-clenching, brie-nibbling crowd in Manhattan so its elite bonafides are set.
Or so I thought. It gets even better. The New York Times had this to say:
“This masterpiece is the novel of the decade, if not the century… The Disappearers places [James] near the front of the line, a decade or two from now, for the Nobel Prize.”
Ok. Now you’ve got my attention. That’s a pretty sweeping statement. “Masterpiece”? “Novel of the decade”? “Of the CENTURY”???
Alright, alright, I’ll read the description, see what it’s about.
Ready?
It’s “a deeply human story exploring queer life in Jamaica during the 1980s and 1990s.”
You can imagine my face.
That’s what the “novel of the decade IF NOT THE CENTURY” is all about? Not a sweeping family drama? Not a story about something historical or heroic?
It’s a book about gay life in Jamaica before the turn of the century fercryingoutloud. That’s a pretty narrow demographic. Might as well extoll a book about one-legged, lesbian nun AOL trolls. Same energy.
And who exactly is this “everyone” who is “talking about” it? I’d like to know.
Still not quite believing my eyes, I plow forward, reading some more. Here’s a bit more detail on what it’s about:
In 1988, eight men in Kingston, Jamaica, begin rehearsals for a play. Though strangers to one another, they share an inescapable truth: All of them are gay. And they live in a world that refuses to accept them.
One night the men are savagely beaten and one of them is killed.
The plot grows from this event. So okay, a bit of a murder mystery, a study in how those left behind react, yada yada yada. Got it. Still not seeing “novel of the century.”
And then I get to the end of the description:
Full of fascinating characters, biting humor, and unapologetic sex, The Disappearers is both a thrilling page-turner and a finely etched portrait of queer life.
“Full of… unapologetic sex”?
Call me old-fashioned, but I’m thinking a book “full of” gay Jamaican sex would have a hard time topping anyone’s list for “book of the century.”
In short, the gay propaganda is never-ending and it’s most assuredly in your face. I’m not really surprised that a bunch of preening lefties would choose to give this book such prime real estate on such a prime bookselling site, but I am a little surprised at the sweeping over-the-top rhetoric to describe it.
A book on turn-of-the-century gay Jamaicans full of “unapologetic sex” will land nowhere but in the remainder pile, and I don’t care what B&N or the NYT say about it.