Marvellous Equations of the Dread: A Novel in Bass Riddim

“A lyrical convocation of reggae, roots healing, the history of Half Way Tree, of duppies and fearsome body-swapping, of dangerous youthmen and deliberate revolution―here is prose steeped deep in portents, parables, and a profusion of signs. Marcia Douglas lets the sounds fall from on high, in prose that chants down Babylon and confirms the coming, sweeter than can be reckoned, of Zion.”
- Caribbean Beat

“Marcia Douglas’s book is as marvellous as its title – one of the most stunning new works of Jamaican fiction I have had the pleasure of reading. The novel that is not unlike the island that it tries to capture – as musical as it is brutal, and here is writing as full of poetic heft as it is of narrative drive; even as you want to linger and relish in the language, the novel demands that you turn the page.”
- Kei Miller

“The spirit of Bob Marley dominates this novel, which evokes the rich, bottom-heavy sounds of Marley's music. You can't tell the living and the dead here without a score card, and a score card would be too linear... Think of this book as a haunted island with spectral voices and inscrutable mysteries.”
- Kirkus

“The Marvellous Equations of the Dread: A Novel in Bass Riddim... has the air of a spell. A beautiful and otherworldly book; a work of poetry steeped in history and rich with imagination. Douglas has a way of conveying the sense of wonder that powers the island's creative spirit. Douglas writes with an almost Biblical diction...Weaving a complex and warmhearted tale ― one told through multiple voices ― against a backdrop of violence. She can be uproariously funny too ― the patois practically jumps off the page, and things can go from light to dark in an instant. Her chapters are tracks that all work well as singles, but when played together pulsate with great power.”
- Juan Vidal, NPR

“Mind-blowing.”
- Publishers Weekly

“Rhapsodic, poetic, scripturally engaged and endlessly inventive. Not only is the electric atmosphere of Jamaica evoked with sensuousness, delicacy and love; so is the ‘dub-side,’ a studio yard just the other side of death, where Bob Marley and a toothless and lisping Haile Selassie discuss the relative merits of routes to Zion.”
- Review 31

“A magical realist journey through the history of Rastafarianism, Bob Marley & Jamaica―not necessarily in that order. Rhapsodic, poetic, scripturally engaged and endlessly inventive. Not only is the electric atmosphere of Jamaica evoked with sensuousness, delicacy and love; so is the ‘dub-side,’ a studio yard just the other side of death, where Bob Marley and a toothless and lisping Halle Selassie discuss the relative merits of routes to Zion.”
- Review 31

“A powerful woman-centered version of Jamaican her-story.”
- SX Salon

“Massively creative, The Marvellous Equations of The Dread draws from―and continues―a long Caribbean musical tradition.”
- The Millions

“Marvellous Equations of the Dread is a celebration of the conflicted Jamaican experience. The women in Marcia Douglas’s books are proud women: they are the descendants of Queen Nanny, the Maroon chieftain who, according to legend, could catch the bullets of the British soldiers between her teeth.”
- The Rumpus