A Brief History of Seven Killings

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism, child death, graphic violence, death, physical abuse, emotional abuse, and mental illness.

Josey’s son, Benjy, becomes don of Copenhagen City, but is soon assassinated by gunmen. Copenhagen City goes to war with the Eight Lanes. A truce is called to hold Benjy’s funeral.

Josey cannot attend Benjy’s funeral because he is incarcerated for the crack house massacre. Sometime before Benjy’s death, Josey’s daughter was also killed.

Doctor Love is escorted to Josey’s prison cell.

Millicent Segree is a student nurse who works at Beth Israel Hospital. Two weeks earlier, several Jamaicans were admitted to the hospital for gunshot wounds. Millicent hid her Jamaican identity from the people who came in with the patients. One of the patients indicated that the gunshots had to do with the killing of Benjy Wales. This name made Millicent feel despondent. She spent the next hour trying to forget about it.

While looking at a man and his young daughter at the bus stop, Millicent misses her father, though she doesn’t know whether he’s still alive. She’s tired of being anxious, but still avoids the news, not wanting to know what’s going on in Jamaica. She reckons with her loneliness and the way people in the Jamaican Bronx perceive her.