false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165518109m/5186.jpg 5186 14 <b>Oprah Book Club® Selection, May 1998</b>: "I come from a place where breath, eyes and memory are one, a place from which you carry your past like the hair on your head. Where women return to their children as butterflies or as tears in the eyes of the statues that their daughters pray to." The place is Haiti and the speaker is Sophie, the heroine of Edwidge Danticat's novel, "Breath, Eyes, Memory." Like her protagonist, Danticat is also Haitian; like her, she was raised in Haiti by an aunt until she came to the United States at age 12. Indeed, in her short stories, Danticat has often drawn on her background to fund her fiction, and she continues to do so in her debut novel. <p> The story begins in Haiti, on Mother's Day, when young Sophie discovers that she is about to leave the only home she has ever known with her Tante Atie in Croix-des-Rosets, Haiti, to go live with her mother in New York City. These early chapters in Haiti are lovely, subtly evoking the tender, painful relationship between the motherless child and the childless woman who feels honor bound to guard the natural mother's rights to the girl's affections above her own. Presented with a Mother's Day card, Tante Atie responds: "'It is for a mother, your mother.' She motioned me away with a wave of her hand. 'When it is Aunt's Day, you can make me one.'" Danticat also uses these pages to limn a vibrant portrait of life in Haiti from the cups of ginger tea and baskets of cassava bread served at community potlucks to the folk tales of a "people in Guinea who carry the sky on their heads." <p> With Sophie's transition from a fairly happy existence with her aunt and grandmother in rural Haiti to life in New York with a mother she has never seen, Danticat's roots as a short-story writer become more evident; "Breath, Eyes, Memory" begins to read more like a collection of connected stories than a seamlessly evolved novel. In a couple of short chapters, Sophie arrives in New York, meets her mother, makes the acquaintance of her mother's new boyfriend, Marc, and discovers that she was the product of a rape when her mother was a teenager in Haiti. The novel then jumps several years ahead to Sophie's graduation from high school and her infatuation with an older man who lives next door. Unfortunately, this is also the point in the novel where Danticat begins to lay her themes on with a trowel instead of a brush: Sophie's mother becomes obsessed with protecting her daughter's virginity, going so far as to administer physical "tests" on a regular basis--testing which leads eventually to a rift in their relationship and to Sophie's struggle with her own sexuality. Soon the litany of victimization is flying thick and fast: female genital mutilation, incest, rape, frigidity, breast cancer, and abortion are the issues that arise in the final third of the novel, eventually drowning both fine writing and perceptive characterization under a deluge of angst. <p> Still, there is much to admire about "Breath, Eyes, Memory," and if at times the plot becomes overheated, Danticat's lyrical, vivid prose offers some real delight. If nothing else, this novel is sure to entice readers to look for Danticat's short stories--and possibly to sample other fiction from the West Indies as well. <i>--Alix Wilber</i> 459447 1994 Breath, Eyes, Memory (Oprah's Book Club) total:2870|5:24|4:34|3:37|2:11|1:0| 2870 10591 3767 276 2 2 false false Wed Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Tue May 29 01:11:09 -0700 2007 Tue Jun 12 12:00:53 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Dec 18 10:41:41 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 03 10:55:41 -0800 2009 Breath,Eyes,Memory by Edwidge Danticat was recommend to me by Nicole. This book, I don't know where to beginning. As I started reading the book I thought it would turn out to be like any other books but it didn't. This book is about the relationship between a mother and a daughter who had not seen e...more...]]> 5 1 true false Sat Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Feb 01 23:45:56 -0800 2008 Fri Feb 01 23:46:55 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Wed May 09 10:03:55 -0700 2007 Tue May 15 14:54:59 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 1 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri May 02 15:46:52 -0700 2008 Thu Jan 01 12:13:12 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Thu Nov 05 03:43:48 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 05 03:47:11 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue May 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Apr 27 22:13:01 -0700 2009 Tue May 12 10:37:59 -0700 2009
I read it, because it did not seem so long ago that I read The Dew Breaker...more...]]> 1 1 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2001 Mon Jan 28 14:19:03 -0800 2008 Mon Jan 28 14:24:44 -0800 2008 3 1 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2007 Fri Mar 02 11:21:57 -0800 2007 Fri Mar 02 11:34:22 -0800 2007 2 1 false false Thu Oct 04 09:02:14 -0700 2007 Thu Oct 04 09:02:14 -0700 2007 2 0 false false Thu Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sun Sep 13 08:20:27 -0700 2009 Sun Oct 18 17:55:31 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Sep 02 02:07:53 -0700 2009 Wed Sep 02 02:07:53 -0700 2009
I cant connect to this book. One thing that sort of c...more...]]> 0 0 false false Wed Jun 10 17:36:33 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 10 17:43:09 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 1 false false Mon Jul 21 14:19:23 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 21 14:52:01 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Wed Nov 18 11:05:13 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 18 11:12:36 -0800 2009 2
i read this book in college, and then re read it just recently...and it did not disappoint.
...more...]]> 1 0 false false Sun Jan 25 22:13:36 -0800 2009 Wed Jun 10 19:23:33 -0700 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Jan 14 19:35:09 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 14 19:35:43 -0800 2009 This was, I believe, her first novel, written in 1994. She’s best known for “The Dew Breaker.” In this first novel, she writes of Sophie, who is being raised by her aunt and grandmother in Haiti because her mother went to New York to start ...more...]]> 1 0 false false Sun Jun 01 22:09:23 -0700 2008 Mon Jun 09 17:17:36 -0700 2008
I feel robbed. This beautiful story was robbed. That's the problem, it had a brilliant start and fizzled a third of the way through - pffftzzzzthh. And it makes me sad, how the author (nay, the editor)...more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Sun Jan 13 12:53:34 -0800 2008 Sun Jan 13 18:33:37 -0800 2008
The first part of this novel is absolutely brilliant, beautifully capturing life in Haiti, as well as the deep connection between Sophi...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Nov 10 22:11:05 -0800 2007 Mon Jan 14 21:39:35 -0800 2008 (said Martine – Sophie’s Mother, page 58)

“Because of you, I feel like a helpless cripple. I sometimes want to kill myself. All because of what you did to me, a child who could not sa...more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=5186