James brings the reader into the moment so well. When the decision is made to kill or save someone in each case it feels like the right decision. I cheer for Lilith as she chooses violence against an oppressor even as I know that darkness is a traumatic wound. She makes the best decision she can in each moment.

I wonder about my ancestors who were soldiers. Would I have been able to pull the trigger? I know that part of military training is to dehumanize the enemy. It is hard to kill people who are the same as you. The other part is that soldiers fight and kill to defend each other. So I may have been able to pull the trigger if I didn’t think of the enemy as human. And especially if I was defending my comrades.

In 1800s Jamaica James is clearly telling us that the white people didn’t view the Black people as human or at least not on the same level human. So it is fair to say that it goes both ways. James’ Black characters viewed white people as crazy sick and other. They were dangerous. So the set up is there for violence. Add to that that the night women were comrades in arms and would die for each other and yes, I might kill or be ready to die in that situation.

I think James offers us another way. He resists dehumanization for both his Black and his white characters, even in a violent and dehumanizing world.

I think armies have figured out that teenagers are easier to mold into a killing machines. In many places child soldiers are recruited or conscripted because their morals are not yet set in place. It is interesting to me that Lilith in the book starts as an adolescent. There is something about her that resembles a wounded teenager. She is ready to lash out. The book follows her to a level maturity and I think James is asking readers to consider alternatives to retributive violence even as he condones any violence done in the name of liberation.

I think all human are fundamentally good. We are born good and any time we are not acting kind or thoughtfully we are in distress or we are acting out patterned responses to old distress. If we are born good then each human is redeemable. This belief would make me a bad soldier.