Reviews

Review: Breath, eyes, memory

Editorial Review - Kirkus Reviews

Sexual traumas link a Haitian mother and her daughter in this wonderfully self-assured debut by 24-year-old Haitian-American Danticat. The world of Sophie Caco, her beloved guardian Tante Atie, and her grandmother IfC the matriarch of this peasant family, is bounded by the sugar-cane fields of rural Haiti. When 12-year-old Sophie is summoned to New York to live with the family provider, Maxine, the mother she cannot remember, she is dismayed. Maxine is perpetually tired after her nursing-home double-shift; she lives alone and dates a lawyer called Marc. She also tells Sophie that she is the product of a rape; a stranger forced himself on Maxine in a sugar-cane field. Seeing her daughter again has revived memories of the rape, and Maxine is suffering constant nightmares. Six years later, Sophie, who has never had a boyfriend, falls in love with their much older next-door neighbor Joseph, a black American jazz musician. Maxine follows a Haitian tradition and checks regularly to make sure Sophie is still a virgin. Horrified by this violation of her body, Sophie deflowers herself with a pestle and elopes with Joseph, enduring sex because she now hates her body, though her baby Brigitte is a consolation. Slowly, through her family's sheltering love on a return visit to Haiti and the new-world ministrations of her therapist, Sophie comes to understand her mother (""I knew my hurt and hers were links in a long chain""), but it's too late: Maxine, pregnant by Marc and racked by nightmares again, dies during a crude self-abortion. Danticat keeps graceful control of this difficult material while adroitly sketching the larger political context and making both peasants and pediatricians equally convincing. An impressive first outing.

User reviews

Review: Breath, Eyes, Memory

User Review - Princess - Goodreads

I dismissed this book at first, as being �too simple.� I had read only one chapter. Pretty arrogant of me, I'll admit, and the only thing I can say in my defense is that I was reading Vladimir Nabokov ... Read full review

Review: Breath, Eyes, Memory

User Review - Mary - Goodreads

Although this book was required reading it is also in Oprah's book club so I was interested in it. Having read it I must admit this book was hard to get into. Very full of additional information that ... Read full review

Review: Breath, Eyes, Memory

User Review - Sharon - Goodreads

"You must never forget this," said my grandmother. "Your mother is your first friend." This idea forms the backbone of this first novel for Edwidge Danticat, who was born in Haiti in 1969, raised by ... Read full review

Review: Breath, Eyes, Memory

User Review - Juanita Rice - Goodreads

I couldn't identify with the characters at all. I did not understand why Sophie hated sex with her husband; I didn't understand that what was referred to as "testing" her virginity was experienced as ... Read full review

Review: Breath, Eyes, Memory

User Review - Maggie - Goodreads

I was very excited to be reading a novel of Danticat's, as I'd really enjoyed her collection of short stories, Krik? Krak!, and thought it only missed the continuity and length of a novel. But while ... Read full review

Review: Breath, Eyes, Memory

User Review - Maggie Campbell - Goodreads

"'You look like someone who is going to be sad.'" "'You must never forget this. Your mother is your first friend.'" "'No crying,' she said. 'We are going to be as strong as mountains.'" "The woman ... Read full review

Review: Breath, Eyes, Memory

User Review - Sandy - Goodreads

At the beginning of this story, Sophie Caco was living in Haiti when her mother, who she wasn't close to, gave her a ticket to fly to New York. When she arrived there, she found out that her mother ... Read full review

Review: Breath, Eyes, Memory

User Review - AMillJax - Goodreads

This book was an excellent picture of life for an immigrant who can feel confused about their life and how different their culture is from ours. I enjoyed the book immensely because it allowed me to ... Read full review

Review: Breath, Eyes, Memory

User Review - Casey - Goodreads

This is a great, if disturbing, book. It's funny how an outsider's view of culture changes her own understanding of right and wrong. Let me clarify: because I was reading about Haitians in Haiti and ... Read full review

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