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Edwidge
Danticat has often drawn upon her experiences growing up in
Haiti as a backdrop to communicate the political struggles
of the region and the continued tension on its people. With
Brother, I'm Dying, Danticat delves into the reality
that has inspired much of her past fiction, and the undeniable
actualities that changed her life in a place that should have
been a safe haven.
Brother,
I'm Dying centers around two important men in Danticat's
life—her father Mira and his brother Joseph. When her
parents immigrate to the United States in the early 1970s,
Edwidge and her younger brother Bob, are left in the care
of Joseph and his wife Denise, an enigmatic and outspoken
pair attempting to live in the struggling capital of Port-au-Prince.
The memoir is as raw as it is bittersweet, gently moving back
and forth between Edwidge's childhood in Haiti and the time
in which she writes the book (2004), as the violence in Haiti
builds and forces Joseph to seek asylum in the U.S.
While
much of the memoir focuses on events in the lives of the two
brothers, it is also the story of Danticat's existence within
those events, including her own pregnancy—a discovery
made the same day her father is diagnosed with terminal pulmonary
fibrosis. Through her flashbacks, Danticat recounts her adolescence
in Port-au-Prince and close relationship with Joseph. After
a radical laryngectomy renders him mute and later forces him
to speak through an artificial voice box, Danticat is overwhelmed
by the response of the community to his ailment. She writes,
"[A]ll I could think to do was imagine a wall around him,
a roaming fortress that would follow him everywhere he went
and shield him from derision." As with her previous novels,
Danticat is an expert at restraint, careful not to reveal
too much too soon or pile too much sadness onto one bite.
But as much as Brother tries to be a tender reflection,
it is no doubt sad.
Rejoined
with their parents in Brooklyn almost eight years later, Danticat
and her brother must reintegrate not just with their parents,
but also with two new younger siblings. This is usually the
part where memoirs go stale with the minutiae of daily life,
but Danticat doesn't labor on this and uses the transitions
as a way to move forward without leaving the reader behind.
As tension
rises in modern-day Port-au-Prince, Joseph, having lost much
of his family to age or violence, finds himself the target
of rebel gangs after being accused of allowing the militia
to use his Church's roof to better aim at helpless civilians.
Though plainly innocent, he moves his family to another town
and makes plans to join his Brooklyn family on a tourist visa.
As he attempts to leave the city, his church is burned to
the ground and even parishioners who had known him for 40
years loot his possessions. As the scene unfolds, it is as
if Danticat were actually there, watching, as Joseph had watched,
his favorite suit walk away on the back of someone else or
his shoes on the feet of the militiamen.
In Brooklyn,
Danticat is reticent to reveal her pregnancy to her family
in the wake of her father's diagnosis. In direct parallel
to the ongoing struggle of her Uncle is the ongoing struggle
of her father and his likely upcoming death. What makes Brother
so endearing is the simple way Danticat describes the two
men, her two fathers, throughout the book. Both are portrayed
as uniquely strong men, loyal—almost to a fault—to
their families, humble, giving and proud, their estimation
in Danticat's and readers' eyes never falters.
Though
this is a memoir about family, it is not without a decidedly
political slant. The turmoil in Haiti in the twenty-first
century is, arguably, a direct result of the U.S. occupation
of the region over 70 years ago. Though UN peacekeepers continued
to inhabit Haiti, the region struggled to build a government
of their own, never able to create a stable economy or democratic
leadership and resulting in tyranny and unrelenting fear.
Joseph's arrival in the US is not without complication, however,
and it leads to the second political tangent Danticat edges
in. Though in possession of a valid tourist visa, Joseph asks
for asylum, anticipating a prolonged visit due to the threats
on his life in Port-au-Prince. Relying mostly on government
documents, Danticat swiftly details the horrifying next 48
hours, during which the 81-year-old Joseph is taken to the
Krome Detention Center in Miami, Florida, and the events that
transpire within them.
What
Danticat accomplishes here goes beyond a particularly tragic
piece of her life story. Brother, I'm Dying is a story
of those who leave and those who stay, of good people in bad
situations and the human condition that allows us to move
forward despite the misery.
(April,
2008)
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