A Brief History of Seven Killings

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of sexual harassment, racism, antigay bias, substance use, and death.

In the first three parts of the novel, spanning from 1976 to 1979, Josey Wales is a top enforcer for Copenhagen City. He later forms his own gang, the Storm Posse, to manage his drug trafficking operations in New York. Josey is an antihero and the mastermind behind the ambush of the Singer. He plots the ambush to advance his ambitions within the hierarchy of the Kingston gang war, and also because he is fueled by resentment for the violence that has defined his whole life.

Josey has narrow eyes, leading many of his peers and witnesses to compare him to a Chinese man—a comparison intended to be a racist insult. He drives a white Datsun, which he uses during the ambush on the Singer. Josey is characterized as an educated and culturally literate character. He is both reflective and impulsive: While he often thinks about the meaning of his actions in retrospect and is deeply invested in symbolism and layers of interpretation, his rashness and short temper work against his better judgment. Josey’s rage causes him to massacre the crack house in Part 4, leading to his arrest and downfall at the end of the novel.