My Mother's House

March 1, 2020
A shockingly original exploration of class, race, and systemic violence. "The two-story (three, if you counted the basement), one-family (two, again, if the basement was included) House had had enough. Fed up with the burden of Its owner's absurd hoarding, inexcusable slovenliness, and abuse of power, It spontaneously combusted everywhere a power source sprouted unkempt." These lines from the opening paragraph of Momplaisir's debut give the reader a sense of the shocks to come in this strange, disturbing novel. The home that's on fire is not only conscious and willful; it's also a central character in the narrative. Those parenthetical, half-hidden references to the basement give us the first hint of the gruesome revelations to come. This house, tainted by the human evil it contains, is reminiscent of the opening line of Toni Morrison's Beloved: "124 was spiteful. Full of a baby's venom. The women in the house knew it and so did the children." And, like Morrison, Momplaisir uses the tropes of fantasy to try to assert truths that ordinary language and realistic imagery cannot communicate. Morrison compelled readers to confront American slavery and its aftermath. Momplaisir addresses both the legacy of colonialism in Haiti and the immigrant experience in the United States. The man who drives the House to self-immolate is Lucien, a ne'er-do-well who doesn't live up to the promise his light skin and expensive education suggest. He is obsessed with Marie-Ange, who, as a general's daughter, is out of reach--until her father runs afoul of President Duvalier. Lucien expects a bright future for his wife and their daughters when they eventually move to New York, but the success he wants still eludes him in a community that only grudgingly makes room for an influx of Haitians resettling in Queens. Lucien satisfies himself by indulging his darkest needs. Momplaisir's unflinching depiction of the horrors white supremacy has wrought is powerful. But the narrative is presented almost entirely in expository mode; the whole novel feels like the backstory to a story that never entirely takes off. And, while the characters function as symbols, they never quite emerge as real. And that includes the House. Momplaisir's debut introduces her as an author to watch.

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March 23, 2020
Momplaisir’s provocative debut unearths the secrets and dark desires of a Haitian immigrant family man living in an anthropomorphic house in Queens, N.Y. In 1960s Port-au-Prince, 24-year-old brothel bouncer Lucien Louverture marries 15-year-old Marie-Ange Calvert after he protects her during an attempted coup. They quickly have three daughters, and he moves them all to the U.S. when the girls are still babies. The house he buys possesses humanlike desires and memory (“The House had been hopeful that would bring warmth and harmony to smoke out like burned sage the evil and sadness that had been left behind by its previous gangster head of household”). Initially, the house, which calls itself La Kay, is a hub of activity, with Marie-Ange cooking for the neighborhood’s diverse immigrant community, but La Kay grows horrified by Lucien’s habits of spying on his wife and daughters. After Marie-Ange dies at 40, La Kay determines to kill Lucien by setting itself on fire. Lucien escapes the inferno, but is desperate to rescue his “girls.” The neighbors, knowing his grown daughters have moved out, assume he’s senile, but gradually the reader—and La Kay—discover the harrowing details of Lucien’s secret basement room where he traps girls and women. Momplaisir’s arresting take on the abuse of male power will long haunt the reader. Agent: Victoria Sanders, Victoria Sanders & Assoc.

April 1, 2020
When Lucien emigrates from danger in Haiti, he buys a house for himself, his wife, and their three daughters in South Ozone Park in New York. In Momplaisir's debut, the house is called La Kay and given a voice, forced as it is to shelter the people Lucien exploits, including other immigrants and his own family, as well as a horrifying secret in the basement. The house sets itself on fire when it can no longer tolerate Lucien's acts and remains one of the point-of-view characters as the fire's aftermath unravels Lucien's secrets. Readers of this novel could be triggered by its content, which contains disturbing violence and abuse. Despite the novel's focus on one man, the author places her story in the larger context of immigration, racism, sexism, and injustice. The chapters rotate among two characters and the house, and this unusual tactic succeeds because of the essential point it makes regarding bearing witness versus taking action. Momplaisir's observant and informed writing is sensitive to the emotions of her characters while not sparing readers hard moments.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

Starred review from May 1, 2020

DEBUT Haitian American author and scholar Momplaisir delivers a tale of immigrants and the American underclass where they often find themselves, but it is also an exploration of oppressive male violence. As a young man in Haiti, Lucien, the novel's protagonist and villain, stalks Marie-Ange, the daughter of Duvalier's assistant, and saves her from death after a coup's backlash. Eventually they marry, and Lucien brings Marie-Ange and their three young daughters to America to live in a house he owns in Queens, NY. This house is a sentient character in the novel, but not all-knowing, unaware of the extent of violence under its roof. Lucien manages to keep his pedophilia and sexual predation hidden from the neighbors, as he captures several women and keeps them trapped in the house's basement bomb shelter. In Momplaisir's hands, Lucien's character is multidimensioned and his rendering almost sympathetic. VERDICT Dense with poetic imagery, this debut novel is propelled forward by rich detail that mercifully obfuscates some of its violence. A tour de force; Momplaisir is a writer to watch. [See Prepub Alert, 11/4/19.]--Reba Leiding, emerita, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, VA

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