Krik? Krak!

Right away, you know you are in the presence of a great writer when you read the very first short story of Krik? Krak! In "Children of the Sea" two teenagers who are in love keep journals when they are separated by dictatorship. Danticat keeps the two first person narratives clear by using capitalization and punctuation for one voice but not the other. The educated boy, a member of the Youth Federation, has escaped Haiti on a boat bound for Miami, Florida, while his young love (who does not use capitalization of punctuation) is left behind to endure military abuses. This was probably one of my favorites. Each subsequent story builds upon the next with the tiniest of threads. A minute detail will tie one story back to another.
"Nineteen show more Thirty-Seven" is a painful story about a woman visiting her mother in prison. Her mother is accused of flying. The government believes she is a witch, capable of rising like a bird on fire.
"A Wall of Fire Rising" tells the short but devastating story of a family barely making ends meet.
"Night Women" demonstrates the lengths a woman will go in order to provide for her child.
"Between the Pool and the Gardenias" is another heartbreaking story about loss.
"The Missing Peace" illuminates innocence abandoned.
"Seeing Things Simply" shares the story of an artist looking for beauty while ugliness crowds all around her.
"New York Day Women" demonstrates just how much a mother's love can suffocate a daughter.
"Caroline's Wedding" weaves a tale of expectation in age old customs.
"Women Like Us" is a message to daughters.
"In the Old Days" is an additional story for the twentieth anniversary edition of Krik? Krak! It tells the story of a woman asked to visit her dying father, a man she has never met. show less

These are painful, beautiful stories of families struggling under the reign of the Tonton Macout. Most are set in Haiti; others take place where exiles have sought safety.

Many of the stories show the strain on families in these terrible times: a woman who lives by prostitution prays that her son won't hear the noise from the corner where he sleeps; people attempt escapes on leaky boats; a daughter visits her mother in prison, where she stands accused of witchcraft even after she dies; a woman unable to hold a pregnancy picks up a dead infant left on the street, and pretends the child is simply quiet. Threats are everywhere, and illogical. These are pictures of a country in the midst of trauma, and families trying not to look, not to be show more targets themselves. show less

Krik? Krak!, a book of short stories about Haitian women, is my favorite of Edwidge Danticat's works. Aside from the first and middle stories, men are tangential to women's lives, being portrayed only as love objects, parental figures or feared oppressors. The stories show Haitians living lives filled with beauty, love, intelligence and fear, in an environment of the most severe poverty and oppression. I would recommend it to anyone as an introduction to Danticat. Then if they could stand the mother in the last story they could move on to Breath, Eyes and Memory where her personality is multiplied by 10.

A wonderful collection of short stories about the Haitian community, a finalist for the 1995 National Book Award for Fiction. I particularly enjoyed her female characters - complex, strong, resilient. And I thought her epilogue was particularly good.

Breathtaking. I find that Danticat creates rich scenes, characters, dialogues, and ideas in her vignettes, but they somehow weave together to create a cohesive story collection. While I typically give short story collections 3 or 4 stars, this one wrapped the stories together, not by character or cohesiveness of plot, but by the beauty of the idea ("Krik?" "Krak!") as a means of how we tell stories about ourselves and our histories. Highly recommended.

The overarching story in these shorts is the political story of Haiti. Within each story is a freedom story about a person from a different generation. These are gorgeous and powerful. Some in second person. Worth a look. Also a creepy-good example of an unreliable narrator: Between the Pool and the Gardenias. Children of the Sea is a great character/plot example in short amount of space.

a friend gave me this book during rather a difficult time in my life - witnesses have said that my eyes were pointing in different directions, whatever - and what i remember appreciating most is the fact that they were short stories, so i could set the book down at regular intervals.

but. then i started reading it. and the stories, they were wonderful. touching, enigmatic (but that might not have all been the stories), and written in a crystalline style that i have always appreciated. the book never got put down for any significant length of time.