Andrea Levy - The Long Song

The Boston Globe“Passionately conveyed, hands-on detail...” Leaves its reader with a newly burnished appreciation for life, love, and the pursuit of both. Sly July knows how to manipulate her reader as well as she knows how to manipulate her white masters, and through her trials July’s joie de vivre shines.

The Independent“A well-researched book that wears its scholarship lightly...” Levy has grown as a writer: her use of language and imagery have become more accomplished than her earlier offerings. She has a real gift for comedy, which is very much in evidence here.

The New Yorker“By turns mythical and earthy...” The tension between white and black perpetually erupts into terrifying violence, and, as if to emphasize the pain of reality, July’s narrative often turns to fantasy. Levy’s greatest achievement is in the narrator’s brisk, comic voice...

The New York Times“Vivid and persuasive...” Readers of “The Long Song” will find little here of the maddened grief of Toni Morrison’s “Beloved” or the deep melancholy of Edward P. Jones’s “Known World.” Levy’s novelistic defense against evil and injustice is her humane sense

Guardian“Admirable deftness...” At times strange and schematic. As a document of the end of slavery, it proclaims its own incompleteness and partiality; but as a story of suffering, indomitability and perseverance, it is thoroughly captivating..

The Observer“Levy never judges her characters. She leaves that to us...” 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. Be prepared for the laughter to stop suddenly...

The Telegraph“Characteristically authentic, resonant and imaginative...” By the time July reaches the advent of the Baptist war, we are so rapt by her story that laughter, tears and outraged splutterings tumble out involuntarily. July emerges as a defiant, charismatic, almost invincible woman...

Financial Times“Not yet reviewed”

Economist“Not yet reviewed”

Publishers Weekly“Not yet reviewed”