Edwidge Danticat returns to fiction after a decade with Dèy
The Haitian-American writer's first novel in more than ten years centers on a mother named Magnolia caught in a mass shooting at a Miami mall, according to a review in the Guardian.
Edwidge Danticat, the acclaimed Haitian-American novelist, has published her first novel in over a decade, titled Dèy. According to a review in the Guardian, the book opens with a mass shooting at a Miami mall, where the main character, Magnolia, is shopping for her daughter's birthday present when a gunman opens fire.
The review describes Magnolia's difficult upbringing: her mother chases pigeons by day and sleepwalks at night, cycling on and off lithium; her father spent years driving a bus in Brooklyn while saving to retire in Haiti. Magnolia was raised in part by an "aunt" whose family had been killed by agents of Haitian dictator Papa Doc Duvalier. The Guardian notes she later found refuge in college before her life circles back to the violence that opens the novel.
The reviewer for the Guardian judges that Dèy, despite its dramatic opening, lacks the force of Danticat's earlier work. No further plot or publication details were included in the material available.
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