New Book Alert

Edwidge Danticat, an author I haven't read but want to and have heard only good things about, has a new book out, The Dew Breaker. Danticat is Haitian-American and her previous book as well as this new one are about Haiti. A review in the Village Voice says:

The Dew Breaker, her third novel, braids together a series of stories loosely linked to one family: a young sculptor named Ka and her parents, elderly Haitian immigrants who live a quiet life in Brooklyn. Ka's father is the singular subject of her art. She longs to monumentalize his years of suffering in a Haitian prison, to etch his scars into wood—never guessing that she's been venerating a lie. As Ka discovers, this father was no martyr but a shoukèt laroze, a mid-level torturer during the Duvalier dictatorship. Danticat doesn't hold back this information like a cliff-hanger, but uses it as an entry point, one of many in these nine perfectly formed chapters written in prose that feels like blood moving slowly through veins.

It is an excellent review, and considering what is happening in Haiti at the moment, a relevant book. I think I just might have to move Danticat to the top of my to read pile.