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The Dew Breaker Edwidge Danticat Books

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The Dew Breaker Edwidge Danticat Books

The Dew Breaker is my first taste of the gift of storytelling by Edwidge Danticat......but it won't be my last!

As the novel opens, revealing shocking secrets of the past, it's clear that the reader will not be disappointed.

The Dew Breaker's title comes from a Creole phrase referring to `Tontons Macoutes' (Haitian volunteer torturers) during the regime of the Duvaliers in Haiti. They would often come in the early dawn to take their victims away...thus the broke the serenity of the grass in the morning dew. These `Macoutes' tortured and killed thousands of civilians, many for trivial incidences.

Beautifully written, the chapters overlap and wind back around each other as the novel slowly reveals the ghosts of the past within the culture's stories of miracles and spiritual beliefs.

Now, living in New York, trying to erase a past that shadows him continually, we meet a good father and husband with a horrible scar on his face and an agonizing secret embedded deeply in his soul...and now...finally it must be unmasked!


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The Dew Breaker Edwidge Danticat Books Reviews

Reasonably engaging. I bought to take with me on a trip to Haiti, didn't learn as much about the culture from this book as I thought I might. No complaints but wouldn't re-read it. I passed my copy on to a friend after finishing it. The author has a good writing style, no complaints about the pacing of the book, just felt the ending was too predictable.
The Dew Breaker
Not what you think it will be at first. Again, it is a lot of short stories that are all linked to one family and in particular one man who did something that he has to live with forever. He has been forgiven by his wife, but he can't forgive himself. Edwidge Danticat is one of my favorite authors. She brings you into her stories and makes you feel the intertwined stories along with her characters. Highly recommended.
This incredible collection of linked short stories is beautifully written and moved me as much as any book ever has. From the first story about a grown daughter and her scarred father, I was seduced by Danticat's beautiful prose. And with each new "chapter" I was brought further into the web of the many lives affected by the acts of the father. The tension in each individual story was enough to keep me reading, but I was also drawn in as I wondered how each new story fit with the previous stories. The final chapter which brings it all together in Haiti in the 60's is incredible. The fact that I continued to read even through the scenes that were painful enough to make me cringe is testament to what an incredible writer Danticat is. Beautiful writing that looks at a very difficult story with truth... even when it's uncomfortable. HIGHLY recommended!
This novel that redeems the dewbreaker is fantastic. When we think that only the killing of him will suffice, he escapes with a scarred face. This evil man is on a collision course and encounters the sister of the preacher he killed and a majestic transformation takes place. This collision course makes this novel a masterpiece.
The cycle of nine stories that make up "The Dew Breaker" revolves around the central character that haunts all of them a loving father and husband living in New York who was once a member of the Tontons Macoute, paramilitary torturers during Francois Duvalier's despotic regime in Haiti. Only three of the stories deal directly with this man and his family, but the other six deal with his victims, their families, or their friends. Although I often feel that stories-as-a-novel (or fix-ups) are not convincing--the distraction of the seams can sometimes overpower the whole--this is an exception if anything, the jigsaw-puzzle approach more powerfully shows how disparate lives have been shattered by one "evil" man.

It's a heavy topic, and much of the book is melancholy and even gloomy--but Danticat is expert at throwing in both comic relief and the perfectly placed awkward moment. All nine stories are superb, but even so there are four the truly stand out. The opening story, "The Book of the Dead," describes a semi-vacation trip to Florida taken by the now-elderly man and his daughter, Ka, who has sold a sculpture based her father's image to a famous Haitian American actress. When the father (with the artwork) disappears, secrets are revealed, Ka's adoration of her father is tested, and the obligatory meeting with the actress is both uncomfortable and unforgettable. In "Seven," an immigrant living with two bachelors in a basement apartment gets ready to receive the wife he hasn't seen in seven years. (One of his initial concerns his apartment-mates need to stop sitting around in their underwear.)

My favorite section, "The Bridal Seamstress," features Aline, a young, idealistic journalism intern who interviews a woman who is about to retire from a career making bridal dresses for other Haitian immigrants ("they come here carrying photographs of tall, skinny girls in dresses that cost thousands of dollars. . . . It's part of my job to tell them, without making them cry, that they're too short, too wide, or too pregnant . . ."). The story turns darker when the older woman describes the new neighbor who, she claims, is the man who tortured her in Haiti. And, the longest and final story, "The Dew Breaker," takes us back to 1967, when the man who will be the cause of so many future nightmares conducts his last murderous assignment in Haiti, and then takes us forward to 2004, with the story of the woman who saved, forgave, and (if such a thing is possible) redeemed him.
This is a book that you will have to read at least two times. I have some friends who are on the fourth read. It is packed with stuff that you miss the first time around. At the end of the book, you realize that there was more to characters, events and places than I initially perceived. While it was a confusing read at first, it was not off putting. This is one of those books that you buy the printed version because it will stay on you mind and prompt you, three or four months later, to go back and clarify a point that just will not leave you alone.
Incredibly sensitive and honest portrayal of one of the darkest times in Haitian history. The author gives so many tiny hints to the reader and if time is taken to research those hints, the pay off is much more enjoyable.
The Dew Breaker is my first taste of the gift of storytelling by Edwidge Danticat......but it won't be my last!

As the novel opens, revealing shocking secrets of the past, it's clear that the reader will not be disappointed.

The Dew Breaker's title comes from a Creole phrase referring to `Tontons Macoutes' (Haitian volunteer torturers) during the regime of the Duvaliers in Haiti. They would often come in the early dawn to take their victims away...thus the broke the serenity of the grass in the morning dew. These `Macoutes' tortured and killed thousands of civilians, many for trivial incidences.

Beautifully written, the chapters overlap and wind back around each other as the novel slowly reveals the ghosts of the past within the culture's stories of miracles and spiritual beliefs.

Now, living in New York, trying to erase a past that shadows him continually, we meet a good father and husband with a horrible scar on his face and an agonizing secret embedded deeply in his soul...and now...finally it must be unmasked!