The Dew Breaker
Written by: Edwidge Danticat
Editorial Reviews:
We meet him late in life: a quiet man, a good father and husband, a fixture in his Brooklyn neighborhood, a landlord and barber with a terrifying scar across his face. As the book unfolds, moving seamlessly between Haiti in the 1960s and New York City today, we enter the lives of those around him, and learn that he has also kept a vital, dangerous secret. Edwidge Danticat’s brilliant exploration of the “dew breaker”--or torturer--s an unforgettable story of love, remorse, and hope; of personal and political rebellions; and of the compromises we make to move beyond the most intimate brushes with history. It firmly establishes her as one of America’s most essential writers.
If you like "The Dew Breaker, you might also like ...
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:
Summary: absolutely enthralling
Comment: Each world is a universe; Each mind is its own. Danticat made me understand this. Each new chapter brings something new to the story. I also loved the idea of chapters being written in short story form. Danticat is a genius, and through her I understood Haiti. I had first hand experiences, through this book, of how haitian lived or live nowadays.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Agony and Atonement.....
Comment: The Dew Breaker is my first taste of the gift of storytelling by Edwidge Danticat......but it won't be my last!
As the novel opens, revealing shocking secrets of the past, it's clear that the reader will not be disappointed.
The Dew Breaker's title comes from a Creole phrase referring to `Tontons Macoutes' (Haitian volunteer torturers) during the regime of the Duvaliers in Haiti. They would often come in the early dawn to take their victims away...thus the broke the serenity of the grass in the morning dew. These `Macoutes' tortured and killed thousands of civilians, many for trivial incidences.
Beautifully written, the chapters overlap and wind back around each other as the novel slowly reveals the ghosts of the past within the culture's stories of miracles and spiritual beliefs.
Now, living in New York, trying to erase a past that shadows him continually, we meet a good father and husband with a horrible scar on his face and an agonizing secret embedded deeply in his soul...and now...finally it must be unmasked!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Exquisite
Comment: This loosely woven collection of stories mostly revolves around the title character, a former torturer who fled his haunted Haiti, and his family. Other characters swirl in and out of the sphere of the Dew Breaker's new existence in America.
The story opens with the Dew Breaker's daughter about to give a beautifully expressive sculpture representing a tortured prisoner to a prominent Haitian-American actress. The father destroys the sculpture before confessing to his daughter that he was not, in fact, the prisoner-figure she thought he was -- the figure she used to inspire all of her sculptures -- but the one who tortured the prisoners. He clearly wants to leave those times behind, but knows he will always be haunted by the fear that he will be found out in his new home, and that he can never make a clean start.
We soon leave this story for a time to learn the stories of people associated with the Dew Breaker in some way, however tenuously: his tenants, customers, girlfriends of tenants... Some stories are resolved, and some are not. At first, this disturbed me a little, but then it occurred to me that we don't always know the whole story of people we connect with, nor do we fully understand how much we can influence their lives, even with brief encounters.
Besides exploring a universal connectedness, this book beautifully depicted the interconnectedness of the Haitian community, both in Haiti and abroad. I also learned much about the horrible circumstances these people have endured over the years. Finally, the book made me think about how differently people respond to those circumstances. Why do some rise up against oppression, while some join in with the oppressors? What is the definition of a victim? Can the oppressors be granted their chance at redemption, or must they always be seen as villains?
The book is splendidly written and a joy to read, even if the subject matter is heartbreaking at times, even in redemption.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Disturbing
Comment: I used this book for a book club I started with some students at the university I work at. I think I was the only one who read the whole thing because it was fairly difficult to read and it was really disturbing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: One of the great, great books of the new century
Comment: Danticat has written some great stories prior to this collection (see "Night Women," especially, and "Caroline's Wedding"), and she's no slouch as a novelist, either. But The Dew Breaker is a breakthrough book, a hybrid of story collection and novel so good that the reader need not worry about which it is.
Each of these stories is working on at least five levels: (1) as a readable narrative in which everything leads to something else, and the reader is pulled through with the same kind of pleasure commercial fiction offers, (2) as a character study, and as an exercise in dramatic empathy -- the reader identifies with the character and feels what the character is feeling, no matter whether the character is inherently likable or not, (3) as a story-within-a story, the broader story being the shadow the dew breaker and his terrible actions cast over the rest of the story, (4) as a story-within-a-story-within the broader story of the nightmare Duvalier regime and the resulting Haitian diaspora, and (5) as a miracle of the lyrical, the language itself forming a kind of music that entrances the reader.
I've not read many books as beautiful as this one, and it's worth your time to pick up a copy and read it.
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781400034291
ISBN: 1400034299
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: 2005-03-08
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: 2005-03-08
Studio: Vintage
 | Format: Paperback List Price: $13.95 Our Price: $11.16 Your Save: $ 2.79 ( 20% ) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Average Customer Rating:  |
Editorial Reviews:
We meet him late in life: a quiet man, a good father and husband, a fixture in his Brooklyn neighborhood, a landlord and barber with a terrifying scar across his face. As the book unfolds, moving seamlessly between Haiti in the 1960s and New York City today, we enter the lives of those around him, and learn that he has also kept a vital, dangerous secret. Edwidge Danticat’s brilliant exploration of the “dew breaker”--or torturer--s an unforgettable story of love, remorse, and hope; of personal and political rebellions; and of the compromises we make to move beyond the most intimate brushes with history. It firmly establishes her as one of America’s most essential writers.
If you like "The Dew Breaker, you might also like ...
 | Brother, I'm Dying (Vintage Contemporaries) |
 | The Farming of Bones |
 | Breath, Eyes, Memory (Oprah's Book Club) |
 | The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao |
 | Krik? Krak! |
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating:
Summary: absolutely enthralling
Comment: Each world is a universe; Each mind is its own. Danticat made me understand this. Each new chapter brings something new to the story. I also loved the idea of chapters being written in short story form. Danticat is a genius, and through her I understood Haiti. I had first hand experiences, through this book, of how haitian lived or live nowadays.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Agony and Atonement.....
Comment: The Dew Breaker is my first taste of the gift of storytelling by Edwidge Danticat......but it won't be my last!
As the novel opens, revealing shocking secrets of the past, it's clear that the reader will not be disappointed.
The Dew Breaker's title comes from a Creole phrase referring to `Tontons Macoutes' (Haitian volunteer torturers) during the regime of the Duvaliers in Haiti. They would often come in the early dawn to take their victims away...thus the broke the serenity of the grass in the morning dew. These `Macoutes' tortured and killed thousands of civilians, many for trivial incidences.
Beautifully written, the chapters overlap and wind back around each other as the novel slowly reveals the ghosts of the past within the culture's stories of miracles and spiritual beliefs.
Now, living in New York, trying to erase a past that shadows him continually, we meet a good father and husband with a horrible scar on his face and an agonizing secret embedded deeply in his soul...and now...finally it must be unmasked!
Customer Rating:
Summary: Exquisite
Comment: This loosely woven collection of stories mostly revolves around the title character, a former torturer who fled his haunted Haiti, and his family. Other characters swirl in and out of the sphere of the Dew Breaker's new existence in America.
The story opens with the Dew Breaker's daughter about to give a beautifully expressive sculpture representing a tortured prisoner to a prominent Haitian-American actress. The father destroys the sculpture before confessing to his daughter that he was not, in fact, the prisoner-figure she thought he was -- the figure she used to inspire all of her sculptures -- but the one who tortured the prisoners. He clearly wants to leave those times behind, but knows he will always be haunted by the fear that he will be found out in his new home, and that he can never make a clean start.
We soon leave this story for a time to learn the stories of people associated with the Dew Breaker in some way, however tenuously: his tenants, customers, girlfriends of tenants... Some stories are resolved, and some are not. At first, this disturbed me a little, but then it occurred to me that we don't always know the whole story of people we connect with, nor do we fully understand how much we can influence their lives, even with brief encounters.
Besides exploring a universal connectedness, this book beautifully depicted the interconnectedness of the Haitian community, both in Haiti and abroad. I also learned much about the horrible circumstances these people have endured over the years. Finally, the book made me think about how differently people respond to those circumstances. Why do some rise up against oppression, while some join in with the oppressors? What is the definition of a victim? Can the oppressors be granted their chance at redemption, or must they always be seen as villains?
The book is splendidly written and a joy to read, even if the subject matter is heartbreaking at times, even in redemption.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Disturbing
Comment: I used this book for a book club I started with some students at the university I work at. I think I was the only one who read the whole thing because it was fairly difficult to read and it was really disturbing.
Customer Rating:
Summary: One of the great, great books of the new century
Comment: Danticat has written some great stories prior to this collection (see "Night Women," especially, and "Caroline's Wedding"), and she's no slouch as a novelist, either. But The Dew Breaker is a breakthrough book, a hybrid of story collection and novel so good that the reader need not worry about which it is.
Each of these stories is working on at least five levels: (1) as a readable narrative in which everything leads to something else, and the reader is pulled through with the same kind of pleasure commercial fiction offers, (2) as a character study, and as an exercise in dramatic empathy -- the reader identifies with the character and feels what the character is feeling, no matter whether the character is inherently likable or not, (3) as a story-within-a story, the broader story being the shadow the dew breaker and his terrible actions cast over the rest of the story, (4) as a story-within-a-story-within the broader story of the nightmare Duvalier regime and the resulting Haitian diaspora, and (5) as a miracle of the lyrical, the language itself forming a kind of music that entrances the reader.
I've not read many books as beautiful as this one, and it's worth your time to pick up a copy and read it.
Technical Details
Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781400034291
ISBN: 1400034299
Label: Vintage
Manufacturer: Vintage
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 256
Publication Date: 2005-03-08
Publisher: Vintage
Release Date: 2005-03-08
Studio: Vintage
