Claire of the Sea Light

Starred review from May 27, 2013
In this gorgeous, arresting, and profoundly vivid new novel, Danticat once again tells a story that feels as mysterious and magical as a folk tale and as effective and devastating as a newsreel. Claire Limyè Lanmè (“Claire of the Sea Light”) is turning seven, and yet her birthday has always been marked by both death and renewal. Claire’s mother died in childbirth, and she has been raised by her fisherman father in a shack near the sea. The book begins there—in the shack, on the morning of her birthday—before winding back to tell the story of every previous birthday, and who lived, and died, each year. For some time, Claire’s father has considered giving her to a wealthy businesswoman who lost her own daughter, and the heartbreaking question of Claire’s fate adds to the novel’s suspense, as both the past, and this single day, unfold. In the meantime, Danticat (Krik? Krak!) paints a stunning portrait of this small Haitian town, in which the equally impossible choices of life and death play out every day. Agent: Nicole Aragi, Nicole Aragi Agency.

July 15, 2013
Danticat's first fiction in nine years (The Dew Breaker, 2004, etc.): a snapshot of 21st-century Haiti in the form of stories unfolding around a little girl in the coastal town of Ville Rose. Claire's mother died in childbirth, and on the evening of her seventh birthday in 2009, her father, Nozias, a poor fisherman, agrees to give her to Madame Gaelle, an affluent fabric vendor whose own daughter died three years earlier in a traffic accident. Claire runs off to think things over, and the narrative circles back to chronicle Gaelle's pregnancy and the death of her husband in a random gang shooting. From there, we travel to Cite Pendue, a festering slum on the outskirts of Ville Rose, where Bernard Dorien's tentative steps toward a better life are violently halted after he is accused of complicity in that shooting. The intricate, sometimes-intimate interconnections between rich and poor in a small town are evident in the story of Bernard's friend Max Ardin Jr., son of the elite local private school's arrogant proprietor, and Flore, the family's maid, whom he raped and impregnated 10 years earlier. Flore gets her revenge by exposing his crime on the popular local radio program Di Mwen--Creole for "tell me." (Danticat makes evocative use of Creole's distinctive French/African cadences throughout, and the novel's title translates her protagonist's full Creole name, Claire Limye Lanme.) Louise George, host of Di Mwen, has her own reasons for humiliating the Ardins; motivations are never simple in Danticat's nuanced presentation. Her prose has the shimmering simplicity of a folk tale and the same matter-of-fact acceptance of life's cruelties and injustices. Yet, despite the unsparing depiction of a corrupt society in which the police are as brutal and criminal as gang members, there's tremendous warmth in Danticat's treatment of her characters, who are striving for human connection in a hard world. Both lyrical and cleareyed, a rare and welcome combination.

COPYRIGHT(2013) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

June 1, 2013
In interlocking stories moving back and forth in time, Danticat weaves a beautifully rendered portrait of longing in the small fishing town of Ville Rose in Haiti. Seven-year-old Claire Faustin's mother died giving birth to her. Each year, her father, Nozias, feels the wrenching need to earn more money than poor Ville Rose can provide and to find someone to care for Claire. Gaelle Lavaud, a fabric shop owner, is a possible mother for the orphaned child, but she is haunted by her own tragic losses. Bernard, who longs to be a journalist and create a radio show that reflects the gang violence of his neighborhood, is caught in the violence himself. Max Junior returns from Miami on a surreptitious mission to visit the girl he impregnated and left years ago and to remember an unrequited love. Louise George, the raspy voice behind a gossipy radio program, is having an affair with Max Senior, head of the local school, and teaches the ethereally beautiful Claire. Their stories and their lives flow beautifully one into another, all rendered in the luminous prose for which Danticat is known. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: The best-selling Danticat's (Brother, I'm Dying, 2007) return to fiction after nine years is sure to be highly anticipated(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)

March 1, 2013

Danticat's last book, the memoir Brother, I'm Dying, was a National Book Critics Circle Award winner and a National Book Award finalist, and her fiction has won accolades, too; now this best-selling author returns to fiction for the first time in nine years. Claire Limye Lanme ("Claire of the Sea Light"), whose mother died in childbirth and whose fisherman father has made the wrenching decision to give her a better life by relinquishing her, goes missing just before her seventh birthday. As the entire community searches for her, secrets emerge that clarify our relationships with one another and with the natural world, even as we see the beauty and heartbreak of Haiti.

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from September 1, 2013

As a native Haitian, Danticat (Brother, I'm Dying) is known for taking an innate cultural understanding and mixing it with a spare, striking writing style, always with marvelous results. The setting for her latest is Ville Rose, a small coastal town in Haiti, where baby Claire is born as her mother dies in childbirth. The novel begins on Claire's seventh birthday and then flows back in time, revisiting previous birthdays and their parallel events. In the village, life and death coexist in heartrending fashion, and the people live with the understanding that any one of them may be instantly and forever altered by natural forces, irrational acts, or simple circumstances. As Claire's father, a poor fisherman, makes a difficult decision, personal histories converge and the village comes together both to mourn a death and to save a life. Throughout, everything seems to be driven by the mystical power of the sea, for which Claire is named. VERDICT A new offering from National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Danticat is always cause for celebration. She has the ability to conjure up the rarified air of Haiti as she manages to pull tightly at one's heartstrings; this novel is no exception. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 2/4/13.]--Susanne Wells, Indianapolis

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 1, 2013

As a native Haitian, Danticat (Brother, I'm Dying) is known for taking an innate cultural understanding and mixing it with a spare, striking writing style, always with marvelous results. The setting for her latest is Ville Rose, a small coastal town in Haiti, where baby Claire is born as her mother dies in childbirth. The novel begins on Claire's seventh birthday and then flows back in time, revisiting previous birthdays and their parallel events. In the village, life and death coexist in heartrending fashion, and the people live with the understanding that any one of them may be instantly and forever altered by natural forces, irrational acts, or simple circumstances. As Claire's father, a poor fisherman, makes a difficult decision, personal histories converge and the village comes together both to mourn a death and to save a life. Throughout, everything seems to be driven by the mystical power of the sea, for which Claire is named. VERDICT A new offering from National Book Critics Circle Award-winning author Danticat is always cause for celebration. She has the ability to conjure up the rarified air of Haiti as she manages to pull tightly at one's heartstrings; this novel is no exception. Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, 2/4/13.]--Susanne Wells, Indianapolis

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2013
Danticat ("Brother, I'm Dying") offers a spare story of loss, human failings, great sacrifice, and love. Seven-year-old Haitian Claire Limye Lanme's mother died in childbirth. The girl's father, Nozias, a fisherman who desperately needs to leave the village to make more money, is struggling with the decision to allow someone else to raise his daughter. He settles on Gaelle Lavaud, a prosperous fabric store owner who lost her own daughter, and tries to convince her to take his. On her seventh birthday, Claire goes missing. Danticat moves backward in time to tell the stories of Claire and her neighbors as the community comes together to find the missing child. Veteran narrator Robin Miles captures the French/Creole pronunciation beautifully and immerses the listener in the setting. VERDICT This beautifully written story transcends its Haitian setting to tell a universal story of human connectedness. ["[Danticat] has the ability to conjure up the rarified air of Haiti as she manages to pull tightly at one's heartstrings; this novel is no exception," read the starred review of the Knopf hc, "LJ" 9/1/13; one of "LJ"'s Best Books of 2013, see p. 26.]--Judy Murray, Monroe Cty. Lib. Syst., Temperance, MI

Copyright 2013 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.