Fast by the Horns

by Moses McKenzie

From the Hawthornden Prize-winning author of An Olive Grove in Ends, a powerful story of broken dreams and divided loyalties

Bristol, 1980. In the tight-knit neighbourhood of St. Pauls, 14-year-old Jabari is proud of his position as the only son of revered community leader Ras Levi. Raised in a world of sus laws and council neglect, Jabari finds hope in his Rastafari faith, which offers the comforting vision that one day he and his fellow believers will repatriate to the motherland, where they will at last be free from oppression and prejudice.

But in St Pauls a local firebrand activist has been arrested, and violence soon overflows, pulling both father and son into its maelstrom. As Jabari rages against the iniquity, a chance encounter with a young Black child gifts him an opportunity for justice - or is it revenge?

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Literary Fiction

256 pages, Paperback

First published May 9, 2024

Reviews

[Emmeline · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant novel and I’m really offended on its behalf that it has less than 100 ratings here.

I came onboard due to its setting in St Pauls, Bristol, a neighbourhood I spent a lot of time in back in 2012. Doing my disgraceful bit for gentrification. St Paul’s is right smack up against central Bristol, and in the 20th century it was home to large numbers of immigrants from the Caribbean; an irony, because its terraced houses were originally built with money from the slave trade. The newcomers were treated with discrimination by police and this eventually culminated in a riot in 1980, which is when this book is set. I loved St Pauls, though I bet St Pauls didn’t love me.

The opening pages show a violent incident a few days before the streets erupted:

I was sure one and two fights would’ve flare up another time, specially with so many of Joyce woman and we Ras about, but not now, not with our common enemy in front of we. Anyone who met I eye did nod, them own eye full up of upset and rage, and I did nod right back. I fed off them feeding and in turn them did feed of I-man.

The whole book is written in this style, a Caribbean patois that, I won’t lie, took me a bit of doing to break into. This isn’t just due to the language, but because we are introduced to the Rastafari movement, which I was vague about before, but which is the cultural background of the protagonist Jabari. His father, Ras Levi, is a major proponent of the Back-to-Africa movement. He’s evangelizing to the community that they should move to Ethiopia. But the community is by no means a monolith, and one of the strands of the novel is Rastafari’s complicated relationship with feminism, and Jabari’s wish to make his father proud, even as he is drawn to the women’s community centre and his friends there.

There is a lot going on here. Jabari’s relationship with his father, and what it means to love and honour a father who is dedicated to a cause as much or more as he is dedicated to you. The way society is organized in neglected and oppressed neighbourhoods—how children are raised, and whether children should always stay with their parents or in their culture. How boys are siphoned away from their mothers at a young age to be raised by their fathers, and the hard lessons that can ensue: “how every black fada of a black yute had the same choice to make: either them could teach we how cruel a place the world was, or the world would, and the world was far harsher than they.”

One thing I particularly loved was the details of characterization. Here is Jabari’s love-rival Prince:
Him fancy himself as something of a sweet-boy. Him keep a whole box of toothpick in him pocket and one in him mouth—you could hear him pocket rattle when him jog up the school stairs.

And his boss:
I went to Mr Delbert at the newsagent inna the morning. The man was a trilby-wearing local icon, deep in him eighties, and him stay inna pinstripe suit. You could call on him at four o’clock in the morning and him would never answer the door till him had change into one of him double-breast.

Characterization is often entwined with social commentary:
I remember Miss Wilson use to have a full house on City Road, and she need it too: she had nine children before she reach forty—them call her husband Straight Shooter and them call her Oven…. I was forever glad that I was born into Rasta, that I wasn’t a Day-by-Day, but if the pigs could beat and lock up I papa, right in front of I, then really I was quite like Miss Wilson: helpless and watching a great fire raze I home.

I found this novel impressive and satisfying on so many levels. I loved Jabari’s voice: caustic and questioning. Often he listens to his elders—admittedly because they’re too deaf to keep their voices down in the park, even when they are talking about him and he’s right there. Jabari is yearning for the love of his father, but he has some serious questions about his father and the role of the patriarch in the community, in the world and before God. He’s a boy who has absorbed his lessons: don’t be a Day-by-day (person who takes it as it comes) and the collective has priority above the individual. But it’s hard living that way. I also loved that this novel was set over a couple of days, and that we often follow Jabari for long stretches in real-time.

I loved the depictions of St Pauls and the surrounding areas and the pointed depictions of police prejudice:

Then them went through the rest of the place: into the bathroom where them rip her towel rack from the wall, her bedroom where them raid her drawer and threw so many of Joyce clothes into the corridor that their falling sound like the flight of bird, and finally them went inna the kitchen they them did find two pack of beer and claim she was serving liquor without a licence.

By the time the riot comes around, I was ready to riot myself. But the book never loses its focus on Jabari, and by the time the riot does come around, he’s on a new path, with new troubles.

Moses McKenzie has just catapulted into my “must read anything by” category.

[leah]

rtc but this was great! so different from anything i’ve read before.

[Undomiel Books · Rating 2 out of 5]

Beyond disappointed it actually pains me.

The one thing I did really like was the nuanced exploration of Jabari's conflict between appeasing his father and his difficulties aligning with the Rastafari views of women. There was a lot of nuance there which made for an interesting read as I didn't know much beforehand.

However, the relentless hatred of white people was just too much. Calling white people "spawn of Satan," saying they're incapable of raising children properly, and that every single white person is evil felt so ridiculous. I understand that there are certain social dynamics and inequities, and I loved how those were explored in An Olive Grove in Ends, but just endless insulting of the evil of white people, in my opinion, achieves nothing. Especially when one thing I've always loved about McKenzie is how he uses faith in his writing, the connections made between faith and race really rubbed me the wrong way, especially the "spawn of Satan" comment. One character half-heartedly challenges Jabari for all of three sentences on his opinions of white people, then just gives in and agrees. There was no nuance to it more than that which I would have happily welcomed, and enjoyed to see how such an extreme fear and mistrust can be built and how it can be dismantled instead of letting it unhealthily fester.

I feel like so much was given to the complexities of this young man's relationships with his father, faith and women, yet then hardly any to the racial complexities.

I adored An Olive Grove in Ends enough to read whatever he brings out next but this, unfortunately, was not it for me.

[Ross · Rating 3 out of 5]

i loved the writing style and voice but thought it could’ve went further

[Yasmin · Rating 5 out of 5]

He impressed me with An Olive Grove in Ends, but McKenzie has blown me away completely with his second release, Fast by the Horns.

Told in Rastafarian english and at its core a letter to his father, Fast by the Horns chronicles the string of events and feelings that land 14 year-old Jabari in a prison cell. It's a striking novel that essentially asks which is more important - family, or the betterment of the community? Better yet, must the choice be made to begin with? I loved the portrayal of the father-son relationship, made incredibly complex by the love and admiration Jabari has for Ras Levi competing against the resentment built up over years of emotional neglect. The belief that parents must prepare their children for the world's cruelty by familiarising them with cruelty at home was written with real, raw emotion, and brought tears to my eyes more than once.

Jabari, being a teenager, is still learning and becoming. McKenzie executed his voice wonderfully, to the point where I could feel myself growing increasingly frustrated by the character's sometimes naive worldview and desperate to speak some sense into him. The story as a whole feels authentic but this especially was a highlight for me. His emotional maturity grows throughout and at a pace that makes perfect sense, which made the reading experience all the more satisfying. There is also a lot of fear, both directly addressed and not, that Jabari faces. It was interesting to be in the mind of a 14 year-old boy who is forced to confront things that no child should - racism and classism to name a couple - whilst also dealing with the classic teen stressors we all know like envy, loneliness, love, and identity. He is figuring out who he is within and beyond his father's guidance, questioning his faith, and contending with the harsh discovery of reality verses what another character calls his 'idealism'.

Balancing so many themes can be tricky without some of them falling flat, but McKenzie got it just right. Fast by the Horns is a poignant story that made me think, laugh, cry, and rage. I'm always in search of an author that reminds me WHY I love literature, and Moses McKenzie has done just that. This is not a book to leave sitting on your shelf for years. Get into it, you won't regret it!

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Shortlisted for the 2025 Sunday Times Charlotte Aitken Young Writer of the Year Award

The story wasn’t finish. I want to ax him to done it. I never know I Bible well enough. I never know what Jah said to Isaac. Right then I want, more than anything, to know what him did say, what him instruction were for Isaac. The story only tell I&I what Jah tell Abraham. But what if, like Abraham was to God, Isaac conviction was test by him own obedience to him fada? And what if Abraham had later change him mind – regret that him had ever listen to Jah, saddle him donkey and climb Moriah without question – and what if him change of heart was evidence of him broken conviction? What would happen then? Then it would fall upon the son.

I first came across Moses McKenzie when he was featured in the 2022 version of the influential annual Observer Best Debut Novelist feature – for his novel “Olive Grove in Ends” which introduced a fresh and distinctive new voice to the UK literary scene from a very young author (the auction for “Olive Grove In Ends” and a follow up – described at the time as based around the St Paul riots – took place in 2020 when the author was a 22 year old recent English graduate).

It won the venerable Hawthornden Prize in 2023 – although I was surprised that it did not feature on some better known (these days) prizes like the Dylan Thomas Prize (for young writers) or the Desmond Elliot Prize (for debut novels). Undoubtedly it showcased an exciting young voice – it had a strong sense of place (here the Stapleton Road area of Bristol), some vibrant prose, some distinctive language (typically Jamaican patois of various vintages including sprinklings of Somali), a memorable narrator (Saylon), strong religious underpinnings (with explicit Christian, Islamic and to a lesser extent Rastafarian influences). Where the book was let down was in some rather cliched literary techniques (oddly inserted exposition, heavily telegraphed chapter transitions, dramatic cliffhangers or revelations, quite clunky formulations). Personally I also struggled with sympathy for the drug-dealing narrator’s cynical worldview and felt the religious aspects were unlikely to work for many readers (confusing for the non-religious, too reductive for believers – which I think subsequent reviews seemed to show).

Now still only 26 this is the author’s second novel.

Overall I have to say that it is a more accomplished novel in almost all respects while still keeping the strong sense of place and community (here as promised St Paul’s in the 1980s), a memorable narrator (Jabari – 14 years old but with a strongly held worldview), a distinctive but easy to follow language (the story is told in Rastafarian patois, most pretty standard but also some slang developed by Jabari and his community leader and self-proclaimed prophet father Ras Levi), a strong religious underpinning (Christianity and Judaism reflected via a Rastafarian lens – with the story of Abraham offering up Isaac for sacrifice at Mount Moriah being a key to the novel).

The novel itself is effectively written by Jabari – in custody – to his father Ras Levi (separately in custody) and is Jabari’s account of the events that lead to them both being detailed and a justification for the actions of him and others in the community, alongside a condemnation of the actions of his father.

Immediately we are plunged into a community/police confrontation, a relationship already at breaking point due to the explicit racism of the police force (and their unrestrained use of the sus laws) as well as the council neglect of the area. The book opens with the news that Angela – a firebrand who is part of a feminist group who meet at a nearby café Mother Earth (whose leader Joyce broke with the Rasatas over their misogyny and whose focus on justice for blacks in Bristol and Britain is at odds with the Garvey-inspired view Ras Levi is teaching his followers that their sole aim is to escape Britan Ethiopia) – is being arrested by the police for plotting a bomb attack on a nearby bank branch patronised by the richer white community of Bristol.

In the resulting fracas Jabari is struck by the police and Ras Levi arrested for trying to come to his age. Still raging at what happened, Jabari and a girl he knows from school (Makeda – named after the Queen of Sheba – who has joined herself to the Mother’s Group) drift into a white area of Bristol where they come across a small black child without her parents. Jabari quickly and correctly assumes that the girl has been adopted by a white family after being taken away from her black (and likely St Paul’s based) mother by the authorities/social services and decides to take the girl (who is both trusting and vulnerable) with him with a plan to reunite her with her birth mother (a plan pretty well everyone else tells him is both seriously criminal and ill-thought through).

Joyce recognises the girl and confronts Jabari with the reality of the girl’s mother’s situation in an excellent set piece scene (where the mother in turn confronts Joyce) – but before any decision can be taken, a series of police raids on first the Mother’s cafe and then Ras Levi’s Rasta run community centre inflames the tension to breaking and indeed rioting point. Among all of this – with his father released from the police after an abusive detention which seems to sap his will for any further community betterment – Jabari has to confront the truth about his father’s faith and what this means for him (all refracted through the Abraham/Isaac story).

Overall I really enjoyed this novel – its one that avoid easy answers: the belief and actions of almost all the actors in it are challenged but equally the circumstances that drive their behaviours and beliefs (for example Jabari’s extreme resentment of whites) are made clear and I think this reflects the author’s increasing maturity as a writer.

I also have to say the one scene left me seen:

“Them had them parking for one and two vehicle and a rear garden too. The people did wear gilet and walk fi them Labrador, them did have uniform milkmen leave glass bokkle pon them step. Them lollipop lady did protect them children, them nah have no panda car stop and searching them. These were the people who use the bank in St Pauls. We’d see them come in them saloon and them grand estate. The man left them family out front, and them never get a ticket no matter how long them take. Then them swan back up the hill, where the pavement were line with tree that rain orange leaf inna the autumn, and the root of the tree never crack the pavement, them stay in them place, tuck neatly overneath the broad slabs. The people of St Andrews did love the fact that the slabs never craze, and that the leaves turn orange and drop in the autumn, because then them could meet in the miggle of the footway with them dog on long leashes and natter.”

My thanks to Headline, Wildfire for an ARC via NetGalley

[Joshua · Rating 4 out of 5]

What are you willing to sacrifice for your cause? As we step into the world of St Paul’s in the 1980s, we see a Black community trying to carve a piece of this land for themselves under the oppressive guise of Britain. The war against these systems underpins this narrative, and we see the varying extremes to which each character looks to approach the issues they see in their world. We’re taken on this journey through the eyes of Jabari, the son of a Rastafarian community leader, Ras Levi. The narrative voice mainly follows the form of Iyaric and partially Bristolian English, in this we are offered a lens into the expansiveness of Rastafarianism as a way of being. In Jabari it is apparent he suffers from a stunted adolescence, having his manhood militantly enforced from encounters with police to interactions with his father. In its explorations of masculinity, race and gender, we see how the liberation struggle can lead to the marginalisation of others—typically women—where the collective fails to recognise and challenge its biases. In the way it dealt with religion, it was beautiful in the way it guided the story steering Jabari’s path and eventual pivotal decision. In Moses McKenzie’s works, there’s always this distinctive voice that so clearly steers the story, building a world so expansive it’s easy to place yourself within the characters. This was a beautifully crafted book, and a great first read of the year.

[LilyRose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast by the Horns by Moses McKenzie is a striking and powerful work of fiction. 1980, St.Paul’s Bristol, fourteen year old Jabari is son of the prominent leader Ras Levi. Jabari has been in raised in a world of sus law and council neglect. In the face of oppression and prejudice he finds hope in his Rastafari faith with the belief that one day he and his fellow believers will repatriate to the motherland. However, when a local activist is arrested, a catalyst of action and violence threatens the very balance of his community and his family, as father and son are drawn into its path. Jabari’s chance encounter with a young Black child gives him the opportunity for his own form of justice or is it revenge? The book is fast paced and engaging the more I read the deeper I was swept into the story and invested in the outcomes of the characters. The book is written in Rastafari patois which gave the story an individual rhythm and deep connection to the language of the characters. This story is a remarkable example of how impactful writing can be many things at once, tender and fierce, sharp and sensitive. It is a dynamic and luminous read from a young and talented writer whose work I will read more of 4.25 Stars ✨

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for a review copy of this book in exchange for honest feedback.

[Mandy · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a remarkable book, a very accomplished piece of writing indeed. Propulsive, totally compelling and powerful it tells the story of 14-year-old Jabari, the only son of Rastafarian community leader Ras Levi. A tenet of the Rastafarian faith is a belief in the eventual repatriation to the ancestral motherland and it is this belief that sustains its adherents in the prejudiced and unjust environment they have to face every day in their close-knit community of St Pauls, Bristol in 1980. Life is tough with constant brutality both within and outside the community, with police oppression and victimisation an ever-present threat. As the novel builds up to its climax, the sense of time and place is brilliantly evoked, opening up a world that will be for many readers an alien environment but which here jumps convincingly off the page. Narrated in Rastafarian patois, Jabari’s voice comes over loud and clear and draws the reader in all along the way. A marvellous read.

[Ben Dutton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fast By The Horns is the new novel by Moses McKenzie. His debut, An Olive Grove in Ends, was a Guardian Novel of the Year in 2022 and shortlisted for the Writers' Guild Best First Novel Award 2023. He was named one of The Observer's 10 Must-Read Debut Novelists of 2022, and won the inaugural Soho House Breakthrough Writer Award the same year. That expectation is high for his second is an understatement.

It is my pleasure to say that this is a superb novel. Set in Bristol, and written in Rastafari patois, this novel is a thrilling read. The voice grabs you, pulls you in, and shows you a world. I haven't yet read his debut, but I've just gone and bought it, such was the power of this novel.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for the ARC.

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 but rounded up to 5… thought the storytelling in this book was absolutely stellar and gave me a really visceral understanding of what it meant to live in st paul’s in the 80s. when i was reading about the riot, my body was sooo tense and i felt so on edge — good writing will do that to you!!! and i’ve said this before but what a joy it is to see black bristolian history depicted, and preserved, in media

i really enjoyed the writing style, the narrator’s voice was really strong and unrelenting and i really enjoyed seeing jabari’s worldview slowly form and change in response to everything that was happening. also thought that the themes of masculinity and conviction / faith were very well explored

i can’t fault this book tbh

[Darran Mclaughlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is remarkable that Moses has published his second novel in two years at the age of 25. I think this book shows he is developing and improving as a writer. This novel is set in St Pauls in Bristol in 1980, just before the St Pauls uprising/riot kicks off. It follows a 16 year old protagonist Jabari, the son of Ras Levi, the leader of the local Rastafarian community. It explores issues of race, police violence, inequality and crime, religious conviction and dogmatism, gender relations and radical politics. It is written in Rastafarian dialect. It takes place in a concentrated and intense few days. Well worth reading. Moses is one of the best up and coming writers in the country.

[Peter de Boer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book and well worth the read. A good insight into the inner city riots in the early 1980s through the eyes of a Jabari, a young Rastafariian. Insights, into community, spirituality, despair and fatherhood. With the racial undertones of the first and second Windrush generation settling into a racist Britain comes hope amidst the need to survive. Bristol has changed but the legacy of slavery still permeates our society to this day. Thank you for this book, it opened my eyes

[Annarella · Rating 4 out of 5]

It wasn't a very easy read as it was the first time I read something in a sort of Rastafari patois but it was a powerful and gripping one.
A coming of age novel, a novel of hope and reality that can be not so nice.
Well plotted, fleshed out characters.
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

[Isabel O’Keeffe · Rating 4 out of 5]

An incredible depiction of the Rastafari community living in St Paul’s and the deep set desire of some of the community to not be living in the UK. It takes a bit of time to get used to the dialect that it is written in so better read in longer sittings. It lacked a story but this was made up for in the descriptive writing.

[indiajchambers · Rating 5 out of 5]

Phenomenal work! Cementing Moses McKenzie as one of my favourite writers.

[Chrismulrooney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Took me a little time to attune, but once I had, I found this to be another incredible piece of story-telling from Moses. And one that makes the reader pause for thought, on many levels.

[Toby Stott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Unreal and eye opening to see how life really is for some.

[Scott Baird (Gunpowder Fiction and Plot) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Full thoughts here - https://youtu.be/sUK7JnBFXqw

[Catherine Airey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why isn't everyone talking about how brilliant Moses McKenzie is?

[Ed Mitchell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant

[Cal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great second novel by Moses McKenzie. The vernacular gives the book a level of depth and authenticity I haven’t encountered before and the vivid descriptions of people and place are captivating.

[Nadine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed it overall. However I found elements of the plot a bit far fetched even allowing for poetic licence.

[Tishreadslit · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Father, a son, and a sacrifice

Moses McKenzie continues his portrait of St Paul’s, Bristol, this time taking us back to the 1980’s.

14 Year old Jabari is proud of his position as the only son of respected community leader Ras Levi. Raised in a world of sus laws and political alienation, Jabari finds solace in his Rastafari faith, which offers the comforting vision that one day he and his fellow believers will return home to the motherland, But when a member of the community is arrested, violence overflows the tight-knit neighbourhood and a chance encounter with a young Black child offers him an opportunity for justice - or is it revenge?

I absolutely devoured this!

The book is a clever retelling of the biblical tale of Abraham and Issac in the book of Genesis. Abraham’s story is symbolic of mans obedience and faith in God in moments of sacrifice. Jabari and his father are representations of both figures however, Moses reanimates the tale as we witness father and son at odds against their personal principles of duty and faith.

What I really appreciated about the book is its fidelity to Black-British history and Rastafari. I learned a lot about Bristol in the 70’s & 80’s from the riots that propelled ST Pauls in the headlines, its community deprivation and the Jamaican locals of the neighbourhood who settled by way of the Windrush.

Although the book is heavily centred around father-son relationships and reclamation, it almost reads as a love letter for these immigrants and their wounds inflicted by the western-world - ‘Babylon’. Alongside witnessing Jabari’s journey to self-discovery, Moses explores the cyclical threat Babylon imposes on the black community, black bodies and black children.

Jabari was a fascinating protagonist to follow. He really grew as the book went on and I loved seeing his transition from boyhood to manhood.

Overall, if you’re a lover of historical & literary fiction, this is a must-read. Moses is a true talent and I’m really hoping for some poetry from him because his writing is so poignant.

[Ella Beales · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5*

Fast by the Horns is a beautiful exploration of faith, spirituality, parent-child relationships, belonging and family. It is a moving depiction of Black immigrant life and Rasta boyhood in 1980s Bristol, told in Rastafarian patois. It is a story about protest, but it is arguably a form of protest itself - against council neglect, systemic racism and poverty. And at its heart, it is a love story to community.

As someone who lives in Bristol, I think it is so important to read about my own city from different perspectives. I think that Moses McKenzie is the same age as me, which is also massively humbling as his talent is phenomenal! I highly recommend both Fast by the Horns, and McKenzie’s first book, An Olive Grove in Ends.

[Lydia · Rating 4 out of 5]

read this ages ago but thought it was interesting and unique!

made me think about how radicalisation happens in young men/ pan-Africanism/ the desire for saviours from tough earthly circumstances

ending was a bit abrupt but didn’t mind it

[Nat · Rating 4 out of 5]

for a book about rastafarI in 1980s brixton, some bits weirdly cut close to home

in awe of moses’ writing: voice, dialogue, and how he can perceptively uncover a character in just a few lines