Out of the three books we have read, Danticat’s The Dew Breaker has been my favorite so far. I really like her style of writing. It is simple but very effective and powerful. The book is written in a series of stories that focus on different people and time periods, but all come back to one character. It is an interesting way to see different sides of essentially one story. Danticat was able to capture the issues and troubles facing this man in the past, present and future. I think she was able to express the regret and darkness of the father/husband’s past. It was still haunting him and I’m assuming it will be brought up as a major issues in the second half of the book because it seems that Dany is on to him. I found it really interesting how Dany was brought up earlier in the book and then intertwined into a later chapter. The way the chapter “Night Talkers” ended with the death of his aunt was shocking. I’m curious to know why Danticat chose to include the death of the aunt and whether there is a symbolic reason as to her passing. One question that I had was: was the man Ed who was seeing Nadine actually Anne’s husband and Ka’s father? He seems to be living multiple lives almost with the way the chapters are written, which show him at different stages in his life. I think Danticat does a great job of keeping this mysterious past hidden, only revealing a little bit at a time through the experiences of the people around this man. He was never explicitly named, although it say he did change his name, so was his first name previously Ed? I think Danticat avoids naming him to provide a sense of ambiguity and to make the reader connect the dots. I am very curious to see if Dany will confront him and what will unfold in the future. I feel bad for Anne because she seems to be tied into a lifestyle of fear which she didn’t sign up for, and their daughter Ka is finding out so much about her father which can make her life seem like a lie. Danticat works off of the interaction of the characters and it’s a great read.
Danticat’s other pieces Create Dangerously and Other Side of the Water also played on the past, present and future. She analyzes relationships to kinship and family in Other Side of the Water. She explores the idea of being an “alien” and not fitting in within a country, and even within family. I think the cousin keeping his disease a secret is similar to the main character of Dew Breaker keeping his past a secret. In Create Dangerously, I found a connection between the main character and Ka. They are both artistic and express their emotions through their work. In Create Dangerously, it was more about a form of protest and a way to say that the people will not be silenced. It promotes the sense of community in saying that everyone needs to come together to fight against the suppression, and this is done through art forms such as literature and theater.
