Krik? Krak! [B2254]

1995 PB in nice clean condition. Arriving one year after the Haitian-American's first novel (Breath, Eyes, Memory) alerted critics to her compelling voice, these 10 intertwined stories, some of which have appeared in small literary journals, confirm Danticat's reputation as a remarkably gifted writer. Examining the lives of ordinary Haitians, particularly those struggling to survive under the brutal Duvalier regime, Danticat illuminates the distance between people's desires and the stifling reality of their lives.

A profound mix of Catholicism and voodoo spirituality informs the tales, bestowing a mythic importance on people described in the opening story, "Children of the Sea," as those "in this world whose names don't matter to anyone but themselves." The ceaseless grip of dictatorship often leads men to emotionally abandon their families, like the husband in "A Wall of Fire Rising," who dreams of escaping in a neighbor's hot-air balloon. The women exhibit more resilience, largely because of their insistence on finding meaning and solidarity through storytelling; but Danticat portrays these bonds with an honesty that shows that sisterhood, too, has its power plays. In the book's final piece, "Epilogue: Women Like Us," she writes: "Are there women who both cook and write? Kitchen poets, they call them. They slip phrases into their stew and wrap meaning around their pork before frying it. They make narrative dumplings and stuff their daughter's mouths so they say nothing more." The stories inform and enrich one another, as the female characters reveal a common ancestry and ties to the fictional Ville Rose.

In addition to the power of Danticat's themes, the book is enhanced by an element of suspense (we're never certain, for example, if a rickety boat packed with refugees introduced in the first tale will reach the Florida coast). Spare, elegant and moving, these stories cohere into a superb collection.

From the surprisingly many recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "This collection of stories restored my faith in storytelling. Danticat's characters move across layers of Haitian history and subjectivity. She is somehow able to capture the social condition of the malheureux, the experience of the diaspora, and the magical in a way that, to me, reads like a confession, not a fabrication. This was incredible.";

"This book broke me a little. It opens with two lovers writing letters they know will never be read: a boy on a sinking boat, a girl hiding from the police. Every story after that is a small room of women in grief. Danticat never explains these women. She just lets them be whole, tender and ruined at once. Then the book follows Haitian women to New York, where the violence fades but the weight doesn't. It turns into family tension, a wedding, and the quiet ache of belonging to two places. Krik? asks if you're listening. Krak! says yes. By the end, you are."; "Each story is deeply moving. I love the way that the stories intertwine and relate to each other, it's a beautiful curation."