Homeland

"Sometimes you dream of hearing only the beating of your own heart, but this has never been the case. You have never been able to escape the pounding of a thousand other hearts that have outlived yours by thousands of years. And over the years when you have needed us, you have always cried "Krik?" and we have answered "Krak!" and it has shown us that you have not forgotten us."

Edwidge Danticat describes a call and answer storytelling tradition of her Haitian homeland at the conclusion of Krik? Krak! as an interaction between the living and their ancestors.

The first story in the collection, "Children of the Sea," is told through letters from a young man escaping Haiti by boat, and the thoughts of the young woman he left behind. This nameless girl and boy recount the details of what occurs around them, naming individuals while they themselves remain nameless. Though they boy never reaches Miami and the letters are never sent the two remain connected.

The last story, "Caroline's Wedding," is set in New York. It describes the wedding of a Haitian American woman through her sister's eyes. It is a simple story that shows the difficulty of living in multiple cultures. It contrasts the American lifestyle with the poverty and suffering in Haiti, yet somehow the culture of Haiti is realized in color and New York is little described.

The connecting theme for all the stories is "Ville Rose" a small town which is the natal village of many of the individuals in the stories. This linking of the stories makes them seem more like a continuous narrative then they would be which is better, I think, then short story collections with discrete stories. Unsurprisingly, the stories are quite unremittingly sad, despite which they are worth reading.