A Brief History of Seven Killings

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism, gender discrimination, antigay bias, graphic violence, sexual content, death, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and mental illness.



At the God Bless Employment Agency in New York City, a Jamaican woman named Dorcas Palmer is assigned to work for the affluent Colthirst family. Dorcas joined the agency three years earlier. Her jobs mainly consist of looking after young children and elderly parents.

An earlier client asked Dorcas to bring her to the Dakota, a building in Manhattan, on the night after British musician John Lennon was killed. Later, when that client died, Dorcas went to a Jamaican nightclub to “get those deaths out of [her] head” (443). She worried that someone would recognize her, but the only person who came up to her was a light-skinned Rasta man who was eager to prove his authenticity as a Jamaican.

Dorcas signals her resigned acceptance of her life. The Colthirsts hire Dorcas to look after their belligerent elderly father.

Weeper has sex with a blonde man. Three weeks earlier, Weeper defended himself and his friend from a mugger. Before they had sex the first time, the man asked Weeper if he was afraid of the “gay cancer,” meaning AIDS.