10 Oct / Brother, I’m Dying by Edwidge Danticat [in San Francisco Chronicle]
Something magical happens when prize-winning novelist Edwidge Danticat strings words together. From the most trivial details to breathtaking moments of enormous gravity, Danticat uses words as charms that gently beckon readers into her world and make them sigh, smile, laugh, and weep.
Crafted in Danticat’s signature precise, unflinching prose, her latest, Brother, I’m Dying, is yet another revelation. In just three words, the title encompasses the memoir’s essence: It’s about family and it’s about death. Within those parameters, Danticat unfolds her heart-wrenching, intimate and true stories.
In July 2004, just as she accepts that her father will succumb to pulmonary fibrosis, Danticat learns that she is carrying her first child: “My father was dying and I was pregnant. Both struck me as impossibly unreal.” During the following months, Danticat and her family will endure and somehow begin to heal some of the most devastating experiences of their scattered lives. …[click here for more]
Review: San Francisco Chronicle, October 10, 2007
Readers: Adult
Published: 2007