The Farming of Bones

Starred review from July 1, 2003
The almost dreamlike pace of Danticat's second novel (Breath, Eyes, Memory, 1994) and the measured narration by the protagonist, Amabelle Desir, at first give no indication that this will be a story of furious violence and nearly unbearable loss. The setting, the Dominican Republic in 1937, when dictator Trujillo was beginning his policy of genocide, is a clue, however, to the events that Amabelle relates. She and her lover, Sebastien Onius, are Haitians who have crossed the border. Amabelle is a servant to a patrician family, while Sebastien endures the brutal conditions of work in the cane fields. The lovers each have poignant memories of parental deaths, and other deaths enter the narrative early, subtly presaging the slaughter that is to come. Haitians in the DR, always regarded as foreigners, are "an orphaned people, a group of vwayaje, wayfarers.'' When a military-led assault against them does erupt, it is a surprise, however, and as Amabelle barely survives a massacre by soldiers and an equally bloodthirsty civilian population, the narrative acquires the unflinching clarity of a documentary. In addition to illuminating a shameful, little known chapter of history, Danticat gives us fully realized characters who endure their lives with dignity, a sensuously atmospheric setting and a perfectly paced narrative written in prose that is lushly poetic and erotic, specifically detailed (the Haitians were betrayed by their inability to pronounce "parsley") and starkly realistic. While this novel is deeply sad, it is infused with Danticat's fierce need to bear witness, coupled with a knowledge that "life can be a strange gift'' even when memory makes endurance a difficult task. 50,000 first printing; first serial to VLS; QPB selection; rights sold in U.K., Germany, Spain, Holland, Denmark and Finland; paperback rights to Penguin; author tour.Sept.)

November 1, 1998
Haitian-born novelist Danticat, perhaps best known for Krik? Krak! (LJ 3/15/95), uses "calm, lyrical, sensual language" to explore the brutal massacre carried out by Dominican president Trujillo. (LJ 8/98)

November 1, 1998
YA-At one time the people of Haiti and the Dominican Republic accepted and nurtured their interdependency. Trujillo's racist regime marked the end of this peaceful coexistence with the deplorable Massacre of 1937. This tragic and horrific ethnic cleansing is remembered by Amabelle, an aging Haitian woman who lived through this period as a young girl. Orphaned when her parents are swept away by a swollen river, she is cared for by the Haitian community across the river in the Dominican Republic. Eventually she falls in love with Sebastien Onius, a worker in the cane fields; their lives are forever entangled as the events of 1937 gather them in. She flees, becoming companion and nursemaid for the wife of Senor Pico Duarte, a member of Trujillo's inner circle. For the rest of her life, Amabelle searches for Sebastien, never completely able to accept his death. Danticat's lyrical writing propels readers forward. This is an emotionally charged story and a powerful historical account that helps readers understand the radical division that exists between two countries on a single island.-Dottie Kraft, formerly at Fairfax County Public Schools, VA

Starred review from August 1, 1998
Danticat was 12 years old when she left her native Haiti for the U.S., and memories of her homeland have been the impetus for her haunting fiction, including "Breath, Eyes, Memory" (1994), which was selected for Oprah Winfrey's book club. In her second novel, a work of pure and solemn beauty, Danticat writes about a rarely recounted act of "ethnic cleansing" carried out in 1937 by the Dominican Republic's brutal dictator, Trujillo. Julia Alvarez has written of Trujillo's evil from the Dominican side, and now Danticat offers a mirror perspective through the eyes of her sweet-natured narrator, Amabelle. Taken in by a kind Dominican family after witnessing her parents' deaths by drowning, Amabelle, a maidservant, has come to love her kind employers, and she is just about to marry a cane-cutter, Sebastien, when Trujillo decides to rid his country of Haitians. All is quickly lost in the massacre: her home, friends, and betrothed, her health, beauty, trust, and hope. A magnetic storyteller and quietly passionate witness to the madness of prejudice and genocide, Danticat presents an eloquent and unforgettable prayer of a shattered survivor. ((Reviewed August 1998))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1998, American Library Association.)