Books in Brief
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Brother, I’m DyingBy Edwidge Danticat Reviewed by Zanne Miller Edwidge Danticat’s father left her in Haiti when she was two years old in the care of his brother, Joseph; her mother left to join him in America when Edwidge was four, and she and her brother would be raised by her uncle in Port-Au-Prince until eight years later, when they moved to Brooklyn to join the rest of their nuclear family. The book begins more than twenty years later, at the time she learns she is pregnant; at the same time, her father is positively diagnosed with end-stage pulmonary fibrosis. Brother, I’m Dying is not only the story of one family’s births
and deaths but of the Haitian immigrant experience in the U.S. and of
Haiti throughout its history, told through personal stories such as that
of her father's brother, who, fearing for his life, flees Haiti during
the 2004 coup only to end up dying tragically in U.S. INS custody. Danticat
also weaves together the experiences of her father and his brother and
their families as she chronicles her own child growing inside. The book is not written chronologically—we are transported (seemingly
effortlessly, a hallmark of great writing) between the present day into
the past, to events that that preceded her birth (such as her parents’
and aunt and uncles courtships); from Haiti to New York to Miami and
into the present; the story is augmented with the recounting of Haitian
folktales. Her observation and descriptions of the emotions, reactions,
and experiences of generations of her own family and of the Haitian experience
in general are compelling, and as richly detailed as if they were her
own. “Isn’t death,” Danticat writes at one point, “No matter how or when it takes place, always solitary?” Yet the book conveys the opposite: None of the deaths in the story, especially her father’s and his brother’s are “solitary” in the true sense of the word. It seems almost too easy to suggest that the birth completes the cycle, provides hope for the future. As Danticat sees the faces of her ancestors in the newborn Mira (named for her father) she is pragmatic: Hopefully I’ll have an uninterrupted life with her. The book is a finalist for the National Book Award. |