ROGER STEFFENS is an author, actor and top Reggae historian.  He is owner / curator of the Bob Marley Archives in Los Angeles; founding chair of the Reggae Grammy Committee; "world's favorite Reggae DJ"; and "the #8 Most Influential Person in reggae today" - the Jamaica Observer. Roger's review from Riddim Magazine:

 

Many a Marley fan has entertained the fantasy of having been alive in ‘75 and hanging out at Tuff Gong in Kingston during the height of the Golden Age of Reggae,  befriending the Reggae King and being privy to some of his most private moments.

 

“Stir It Up,” the riveting new book by psychologist and world traveler David Dusty Cupples, uses such a premise as the starting point for a roman a clef that peels back the layers of intrigue and sabotage that unsettled Jamaica during its path toward Democratic Socialism in the ‘70s. It’s “what if?” theme echoes other powerful books like Barbara Blake Hannah’s “Joseph,” and Perry Henzell’s “Power Game,” both based on fact, thinly disguised tellings of what really gwaan in Yard.

Three stories are expertly interwoven: the tale of Scott Gallagher, a high school boy whose secretive father is assigned to the American Embassy in Kingston; the behind the scenes history of the CIA’s murderous involvement throughout the developing world; and Scott’s ultimate mental breakdown, distraught over unrecovered memories of what he calls his “Lost Time.”  Sent to a psychologist in 1980 in Santa Barbara, California, it becomes the tale of a doctor patient relationship that is often turned on its head – who is healing whom?

 

Each of the main characters has lost someone close to themselves - a wife, a mother, a lover - and their scars have hardly healed. Threaded throughout are revelations that cause great anxiety and a desire to flee from the pain that their repression has caused. We learn how psychologists use their tools – hypnotism among them – to gain access to early experiences, and the ways in which healing can commence through confrontation.

 

The chief actions take place in 1975 and 1976, leading to the bold assassination attempt on Marley’s life and the numerous plots against Prime Minister Michael Manley. We are there in Jamaica House listening to Manley and his wife Beverley’s pillow talk. We learn of the insurmountable forces aligned against the government, led by the United States in its project to destabilize his country, fearful of Manley’s potential alliances with his Communist neighbor Cuba. Henry Kissinger makes an appearance, as do many other historic figures.

 

Cupples has done his research and cites documents and case histories to back up the theory that it was the CIA which orchestrated the hit on Marley. Others may disagree, but this is an alternative history novel, an increasingly popular genre. So much of the story here really happened that it gives a patina of authenticity to the book that holds the reader enraptured. I frankly couldn’t put it down, racing to its end, but wishing it never would. It’s a true feast for any serious reggae fan.

 

Scott, the youth at the center of the story, is a singer in a reggae band in 1980 as the book begins. He is deeply insecure despite an obvious talent, emotionally isolated and closed off. Something happened back in Jamaica, and little things – the sounds of birds in the middle of the night, a stranger appearing out of nowhere telling him to plant white lilies in his yard to ward off Obeah – unite to keep him off balance. His aunt, his sometime caretaker, suggests he see a friend of hers, a psychologist named Phil Mitchell, a divorced alcoholic poorly dealing with his own set of neuroses. Their relationship is contentious from the very start, as Scott sees through his professional demeanor immediately. These encounters eventually lead to a near-fatal denouement, that echoes the gathering storm of the earlier Smile Jamaica events in which Bob, his wife, manager and a friend were shot by gunmen who stormed Marley’s compound on Dec. 3, 1976. No one was ever caught and Cupples thinks he knows why.

 

The book is studded with fascinating asides on history and language (“duppy” is revealed as a contraction of “door peeper” – a ghost who peers through cracks in the wall; “hurricane” is from the Arawak word for the God of Storms, Huracan). With a full cast of gunmen, politicians, traditional healers, diplomats, street people and scholars, “Stir It Up” is a provocative examination of one of the key moments in 20th century Third World history, and not to be missed.