Upon finishing "The Dew Breaker" I found myself moved and also disappointed. The latter mainly because not all the stories in the collection were nearly as powerful as the final two stories: "The Funeral Singer" and "The Dew Breaker." The variation in narrator's voice is jarring across some of the stories not necessarily changing points-of-view but the psychic distance and given that this is supposed to be a novel and not a collection I would have expected more continuity. Nonetheless it's a great read and affords some insightful discourse on the experience of a group of Haitians who lived through the regime and immigrated to the United States. ( )

This primarily reads like a collection of short stories, but they are linked with some common characters appearing in several of the episodes. Basically, it describes incidents in the lives of Haitian immigrants in the U.S., and, in some cases, describes their lives in Haiti prior to their immigration, or in one case, on a return trip.

The book was the "One Read" book for Bunker Hill CC this past year, and even though BHCC gave me the boot several years ago, I was interested in reading what they thought would be useful for their students. It probably would have helped me when I did teach. I did have a student who came from Haiti. As I recall, he made a rather beautiful web site about his home country.
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I liked the individual stories-- especially the way minor characters in one story were the main character in another. The collection does raise some interesting questions about what people are capable of in desperate situations, and how to appropriately judge their actions. I did find the threads hard to follow through the whole collection, hard to keep characters straight especially through time and around the globe. Still, this is a worthwhile read and a good introduction to Haitian literature. ( )

We are introduced to a Haitian man, living in Brooklyn. He emigrated here, over thirty years ago. He is a good father and a good husband. He also has a very dark past, which involved, working as a prison guard, in his homeland. Rumors of atrocities abound...
We are then shown separate stories, of the lives of other Haitians, as they deal with the struggles of life and each of them has some connection, with the “Dew Breaker”, (or torturer).
This was my first novel, by this author and I was quite impressed. Her haunting prose, is beautiful but also tough and unflinching. It may not always be an easy or smooth read but it will make an indelible impression.

“And for the rest of the night we raise our glasses, broken and unbroken alike, to the terrible days behind us and the uncertain ones ahead.” ( )

"Dew breaker" is a Creole name for a torturer, referring to the disruption of a morning's peaceful serenity by walking across the dew-covered grass. In this case that grass was disturbed by Haitian military, coming in the early morning to arrest, torture and kill those who spoke out in any way against the Haitian dictatorship of the 1960's. This rather short novel by a Haitian-American author is the fictional story of a man living in New York as a kind father, barber, and landlord. Although somewhat reclusive he lives a peaceful life until he reveals to his adult daughter that the terrible scar on his face is not from being tortured in a Haitian prison, but rather the result of being the torturer. After this revelation in the first pages of the book, the remainder of the story is a retrospective of his life before coming to the United States and assuming a new identity. Told from numerous perspectives, the novel introduces to the reader numerous characters who are or have been a part of the dew breaker's past. Skipping from one character to another is somewhat frustrating, but the author manages to do it in a way that ultimately ties all the characters together and leaves the reader in awe at her skill in storytelling. ( )