The Disappearers

By Marlon James

In Kingston in 1988, rehearsals for a play bring eight unfamiliar men into the same room. They have different lives, but they share the experience of being gay in a society hostile to their existence. The possibility of connection is violently interrupted when the group is attacked and one man is murdered.

For the survivors, recovering from their injuries is only the beginning. The assault exposes dangers they must now negotiate in different ways. Some try to carry on without acknowledging it, some turn toward retaliation, and others withdraw or vanish from the lives around them.

Following the consequences into the following decade, Marlon James explores grief, queer community, and the compromises demanded by survival. The novel asks what remains of a shared experience when fear and prejudice push the people who lived through it toward radically different futures.