HPA book club meets Thursday

The Hawaii Preparatory Academy Community Book Club will meet at 7 p.m. on Thursday in the Dyer Memorial Library, Upper Campus, in Waimea.

Community Book Club meetings are free and open to the public. Light refreshments will be served and participants are invited to bring a snack to share.

Lois Inman, Dyer Memorial librarian, and Jaime Johnson, Upper School English teacher, will lead the group. The current book selection is “A Brief History of Seven Killings” by Marlon James, winner of the 2015 Man Booker Prize, a recipient of the 2015 American Book Award, and a New York Times Book Review Notable Book.

On Dec. 3, 1976, just weeks before the general election and two days before Bob Marley was to play the “Smile Jamaica” concert to ease political tensions, seven men from West Kingston stormed his house with machine guns. Marley survived and went on to perform at the free concert. But the next day he left the country and didn’t return for two years.

Inspired by this near-mythic event, “A Brief History of Seven Killings” takes the form of an imagined oral biography, told by ghosts, witnesses, killers, members of parliament, drug dealers, conmen, beauty queens, FBI and CIA agents, reporters, journalists, and even Keith Richards’ drug dealer. The story traverses strange landscapes and shady characters, as motivations are examined – and questions asked.

Info: Jaime Johnson, jjohnson@hpa.edu.