by Edwidge Danticat

Reviewed by Maxine Thompson

Have you ever listened to a melody that haunted you? Or, watched a ballet where the choreography transported you to other worlds? Well, for those of you who are delivered to rapture over the rhythm of a deftly turned line, this opus, Edwidge Danticat's novel, The Farming of Bones, fits the bill. This novel is like an adagio. You will discover a pas de deux between each sadly wrought line and the music of the story itself.

Told in first person, the prose in The Farming of Bones is sparse, yet poetic. Danticat evokes echoes of the lush Haitian setting in every line. The story is set against the backdrop of the Dominican Republic. The novel opens in 1937 on the Dominican side of the Haitian border. The main character, Amabelle, (whose lilting name sounds like an aria), dreams of her parents, whose drowning she witnessed at the tender age of eight. Her lover, Sebastian, who is an itinerant Haitian cane cutter, gently comforts her. Sebastian, too, has scars, both literally and figuratively, from his nightmarish life. Fittingly, the opening use of water in the book is mirrored in the ending.

We learn that Amabelle is a maid to the young wife of an army colonel, Senor Pico. One of the subplots in the novel involves the friendship between the servant, Amabelle and her mistress, Senora Valencia. Their friendship is forged in blood when Amabelle unexpectedly has to deliver Valencia's baby. (Incidentally Amabelle's deceased parents had been midwives.) The baby turns out to be twins, a boy and a girl! Meanwhile, in Senor Pico's excitement to get home and see his newborns, he accidentally runs over and kills an unknown Haitian. This victim turns out to be Kongo's son, Joel. Later, the Colonel's newborn, healthier twin, the son, mysteriously dies. There is a subtext, which hints at the death of Kongo's son as being the cause of the male twin's death.

Growing rumors of persecution of the Haitians by the Dominicans had begun to reach the cloistered world in the mansion where Amabelle lived. But she felt safe. However, in a watershed, history flips a script and a reign of terror ensues. These rumors become a hellish reality. Given the racial stratification between the Haitians and Dominicans, you can understand how this precipitated the persecution, execution and annihilation of the Haitians at the hands of the Dominicans. Shortly thereafter, Amabelle, along with other Haitians, has to flee the country for her life. Although Amabelle is the servant, she becomes a lifelong memory to her mistress, Senora Valencia. Amabelle's disappearance was never accounted for until many years later.

In 1937, the Haitians lived with death ever present. This little known history is a microcosm of all the more publicized atrocities of mankind such as Slavery, the Holocaust or more recently, Rosewood. Still this book is more than just a tale of man's inhumanity to man. This is a tale of a star-crossed love affair, which both touches and disturbs you. The doomed love affair between Amabelle and Sebastian is only chronicled in the first half of the book, but its long casting shadow segues throughout the rest of the book. Underlying Amabelle and Sebastian's hopes for marriage, (which were never brought to fruition), there is a macabre dance of death going on. In fact, the theme of birth and death reverberates throughout The Farming of Bones. As you follow the story, the dichotomy of life/death is depicted in how the characters react under these barbaric circumstances.

At the same time, there is a theme about the search for a place called "home." This search is universal and ageless. Specifically, for the children of the African Diaspora scattered throughout the world, this search is for homes in other lands. In The Farming of Bones, the character, Sebastian, had intimated that he wanted to go home to Haiti, and never cut the bones (a metaphor for the sugar cane) anymore. This metaphor, The Farming of Bones, acts as an allegory on three levels. On one level, it is speaking of the despicable conditions of the itinerant Haitian sugar cane cutter's life. On another level, it refers to the genocide that the Haitians experienced during this period. On a universal level, The Farming of Bones symbolizes all the bones that have ever been wasted in wars, executions, and persecutions. This book conjures up the images of the piles of bones later found in the concentration camps.

What is so chilling about this story is it is so real. This book is a work of fiction based on historical events, which actually happened. My reaction to this book brought another point home for me. We, as Americans, have a fascination with happy ever-after endings, even in our literature. These preferences come across through our popular choices of humorous, predictable and easy-to-digest fiction versus serious literature. In that case, The Farming of Bones may not be your taste. It's not easy to accept that bad things happen to good people all the time. Or, that man has a darker side to his nature.

In a book like this, we, as the readers, come away feeling that this book is too sad with no redeeming qualities, no deus ex machina. But this is the beauty of the book. There is redemption and dignity in that endurance. Because of those who endured, young Edwidge Danticat has managed to keep this segment of Haitian history alive, forever. Moreover, she keeps the memory of these slaughtered Haitians branded into your psyche.

Danticat takes risks in her writing in that she takes a stark look at the darker side of humanity. In The Farming of Bones what is delivered is a different cultural worldview reflected in the characters' resignation to their environment. It is one that says, "Yes, life is hard. Yes, it is unfair but we endure." In the final analysis, another thing Danticat accomplishes is that she shows a worldview diametrically opposed to the Western one. This is reflected in the characters' acceptance of death, and even suicide, as natural. In our Western worldview, we fight death tooth and nail. As one of the most advanced countries in the world, it is inherent in our whole outlook that we view death as unnatural, such as in our fight against terminal illnesses, etc. But we forget one thing. John Irving, best-selling author of The World According to Garp, at the end of his novel put it best when he said, "But ... we are all terminal cases." Still, it is how we live in between that counts. The Farming of Bones is a reminder of that. As such, this is a poignant book, which will haunt you for the rest of your life.