Brother, I'm Dying
by Edwidge Danticat
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Book Summary Information
Author: Edwidge DanticatEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Published)
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2007-09-04
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 288
Publisher: Knopf
Book Reviews of Brother, I'm Dying
Book Review: Sister, My Heart is Breaking
Summary: 5 Stars
I first read an excerpt from this book in a 2005 edition of the New Yorker. I was intrigued by the tender story of Danticat's cousin, Marie Micheline. An older sister figure for Danticat, Marie's difficult path into adulthood began with an unplanned pregnancy that was tragic but not heartbreaking. I was uncertain how that excerpt would fit in a broader book that, from the start, seemed to address the illness and death of Danticat's father. But the book is so much more than a recounting of her father's death, or even the passing of the older generation in her family who reared her in a community style. Part of Danticat's masterful style is that she layers so many stories into one book and the book stands as a cohesive whole. This is a memoir of raising children in the Haitian diaspora, it is a tribute to her Uncle Joseph and Tante Denise, the side of her family that chose to stay in Haiti. But it is also a book that follows the sad descent of Haiti into violence and chaos in the early twenty-first century. At times the tone is that of a sweet nostalgia for the past, at other points it is of suspense, and finally, it rests at a point of tragedy. Read from the perspective of 2010, after the devastating earthquake, it reminded me that the suffering and disorder which plagues Haiti in the present is not a recent phenomenon. The tragedies suffered by Danticat's family are personal, but they are not unique. I recommend this book because it is beautifully written, and it will bother the conscience of Americans. The book did not get broader acclaim the year it was published, i believe, because it appears to address mundane themes, the relationships between family members, it is fundamentally somber and it addresses a part of the world that is small and evokes little sympathy or interest (think Afghanistan pre-Obama and pre-Charlie Wilson's War). Indeed, my heart felt broken by the end of the book. But I'm ok if my heart is broken for a good reason.
Summary of Brother, I'm Dying
From the best-selling author of The Dew Breaker, a major work of nonfiction: a powerfully moving family story that centers around the men closest to her heart?her father, Mira, and his older brother, Joseph.From the age of four, Edwidge Danticat came to think of her uncle Joseph, a charismatic pastor, as her ?second father,? when she was placed in his care after her parents left Haiti for a better life in America. Listening to his sermons, sharing coconut-flavored ices on their walks through town, roaming through the house that held together many members of a colorful extended family, Edwidge grew profoundly attached to Joseph. He was the man who ?knew all the verses for love.?
And so she experiences a jumble of emotions when, at twelve, she joins her parents in New York City. She is at last reunited with her two youngest brothers, and with her mother and father, whom she has struggled to remember. But she must also leave behind Joseph and the only home she?s ever known.
Edwidge tells of making a new life in a new country while fearing for the safety of those still in Haiti as the political situation deteriorates. But Brother I?m Dying soon becomes a terrifying tale of good people caught up in events beyond their control. Late in 2004, his life threatened by an angry mob, forced to flee his church, the frail, eighty-one-year-old Joseph makes his way to Miami, where he thinks he will be safe. Instead, he is detained by U.S. Customs, held by the Department of Homeland Security, brutally imprisoned, and dead within days. It was a story that made headlines around the world. His brother, Mira, will soon join him in death, but not before he holds hope in his arms: Edwidge?s firstborn, who will bear his name?and the family?s stories, both joyous and tragic?into the next generation.
Told with tremendous feeling, this is a true-life epic on an intimate scale: a deeply affecting story of home and family?of two men?s lives and deaths, and of a daughter?s great love for them both.
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