Dèy - by Edwidge Danticat (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD - From the bestselling author of Everything Inside comes a vivid, timely story, moving from Haiti to Brooklyn to Miami, of a woman whose sense of self and family are called into question when she gets caught in a random act of violence one sunny Florida day.

"Is home the place where we are born? Or is it the place where we die?" These questions haunt Magnolia, a successful Haitian American real estate agent in Miami. When she hears gunfire while at a shopping mall, she takes shelter in a nearby restaurant, cowering with fellow shoppers and diners. Once she's safely home, Magnolia keeps this traumatic event from everyone. But given her life back, she begins to see everything clearly: her extraordinary bond with her daughter, Zoë; her nearly broken relationship with Zoë's father; the challenges of her mentally troubled mother, whose unraveling patterns Magnolia worries she's spiraling toward herself; and her father's affair with a woman who has borne him a child. While struggling through the labyrinth of her past, Magnolia must also come to terms with the losses sustained that life-altering day, and nearly every day by her parents and sibling in Haiti.

Can love or family protect us from harm? Does optimism or fear win out in one's heart? Which side will prevail for Magnolia? Pulled between these questions, each of which involves a high-stakes choice--Miami or Haiti, single or married, mortal or ghost, before or after--Magnolia is a narrator who is "yon pati koukouy, part firefly" flitting and shimmering between different worlds.

Taking as its title a Haitian Kreyòl word for mourning, Dèy is a profoundly warm and moving novel about the importance not only of sharing grief but also of inseverable family ties. Brave and striking, Dèy is one of Danticat's most powerful and deeply affecting works yet, told with her signature "unfaltering voice and evocative beauty" (The Boston Globe).

Review Quotes

"Edwidge Danticat is an author whose work truly captures the Haitian American immigrant experience with prose that is so languid and all-consuming that one never wants to be released from its grasp. In her first novel in over a decade, she offers a beautiful exploration of migration, gentrification and political instability. . . . A story that allows us to reassess love and grief, Dèy is a novel of now." --NPR

"In graceful, gimlet-eyed prose, Edwidge Danticat stares down preconceptions of family and belonging, lending her novel propulsion and promise." --TIME

"A searching work from one of our most gifted and consistent writers." --The Boston Globe

"The novelist's duty is to present such questions and then leave the room--to grant the reader space to ponder them. Danticat does this masterfully, particularly regarding the subjects of love and home. . . . Dèy is a love song and an elegy for the Haitian diaspora. It sparkles with adoration for the melodic Kreyòl language, for the celebrations that take place in Miami's Little Haiti. . . . There is hope, however faint, in this tender novel." --Imbolo Mbue, The New York Times Book Review

"Edwidge Danticat probes the ideas of safety, home, and survival all while examining the consequences of not speaking about one's pain." --Vulture

"Edwidge Danticat's first novel in over a decade is a pristine account of the slowly unfolding aftereffects of shock." --New York Magazine

"Danticat is a writer of both nuance and emotional force, and in Déy, she captures both." --Chicago Review of Books

"As books editors at this magazine, you care about a good turn of phrase. Which books are you excited about, on a sentence level? For me, it's Dèy, by Edwidge Danticat, also coming August 25th--her first novel in a decade. Danticat's sentences are amazing." --Hannah Jocelyn, The New Yorker

"Edwidge Danticat is back (after a decade!) with this powerful narrative of trauma, family and home. I was hooked from the first page . . . it flows beautifully and thoughtfully. With Haitian language and diaspora woven throughout, Dèy is an evocative reflection on contemporary violence and grief." --Ms. Magazine

"Explores the weight of grief and the levity of community." --Bustle

"Dèy stands among Danticat's most affecting works. It is a moving portrait of grief in all its forms--mourning not only people, but neighborhoods, countries, identities and imagined futures. In doing so, Danticat once again demonstrates why she remains an essential voice chronicling not only the Haitian American experience, but American life." --The Haitian Times

"Loss and mortality have long been themes in the author's books, along with family, migration, memory and belonging. In Dèy, it is also about people trying to remain connected across distance and to feel rooted in the different places they call home." --Miami Herald

"Poignant. . . . Danticat's domestic narrative is deceptive, as we realise that she is writing about something more profound: how violence touches us all, even when it's on the other side of the world; how children are being taught survival tactics at an increasingly young age; and how solace can be found in 'dèy'. . . . Tenderly drawn, making for an immersive read. This is a story for our times, a powerful meditation on belonging, the immigrant experience and familial love." --Financial Times

About the Author

EDWIDGE DANTICAT is the author of numerous books, including The Art of Death, a National Book Critics Circle finalist; Claire of the Sea Light, a New York Times Notable Book; Brother, I'm Dying, a National Book Critics Circle Award winner and National Book Award finalist; The Dew Breaker, a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist; The Farming of Bones, an American Book Award winner; Breath, Eyes, Memory, an Oprah's Book Club selection; and Krik? Krak!, also a National Book Award finalist. A Neustadt International Prize for Literature winner and the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant, she has been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Harper's Magazine, and elsewhere.