March 21, 2004

The Collection, The Poor Parent

Edwige Danticat's work has always impressed me, whether it be in the form of the novel (like her fine The Farming of Bones) or short stories (Krik? Krak!). So I've been following the reviews generated by her new book, The Dew Breaker. I'm amused at the general confusion about whether it is a short-story collection or a novel. Knopf has it listed as a novel in its introductory page, but follow the link and you'll notice that the publisher is rather ambiguous about it, calling it a work of fiction. Then there are the reviews. Consider these excerpts (emphasis mine):

New York Times Sunday Book review by Richard Eder

The final and title story of ''The Dew Breaker,'' Danticat's new collection, makes a more direct approach to horror. Set in the 1960's during the reign of Francois Duvalier, it recounts, dry-mouthed, the hours spent by a Tonton Macoute (one of Duvalier's murderous agents) as he waits in his car for a dissident preacher to arrive at church.

Haiti's bloody and bitter history of violence, corruption and vengeance stalks all the characters in Edwidge Danticat's remarkable new novel, infecting their dreams and circumscribing their expectations. It is a nightmare they are all trying in vain to rewind and erase.

From his right cheek down to his mouth, Ka's father has a blunt, rope-like scar - a reminder of his time in a Haitian prison. But her image of the prisoner father is shattered when he reveals that he "was the hunter, he was not the prey."
With that confession, Edwidge Danticat opens what at first seems to be a disjointed collage of Haitians living in New York. But with these vignettes, "The Dew Breaker" draws us deeper into Haiti's wounds as it weaves connections between the hunter and his prey.

At the heart of her new book, which straddles the ever- thinner line between short-story collection and novel, is a family of three.

Expect to see and hear much more about Danticat, author of three previous works of fiction and a slim work of nonfiction ("After the Dance: A Walk Through Carnival in Jacmel, Haiti") with the appearance of her latest novel, "The Dew Breaker." Though it isn't billed as such, "The Dew Breaker" may best be described as a novel-in-stories. It is comprised of nine stories, or chapters, more than half of which were previously published.

About

My Events

Search

My book

In hardcover

In Morocco

In Italian

In Portuguese

In french

In dutch

In spanish