Reviews

The Farming of Bones: A Novel by Edwidge Danticat

lezreadalot's review

4.0

“Misery won’t touch you gentle. It always leaves its thumbprints on you; sometimes it leaves them for others to see, sometimes for nobody but you to know of.”

A deeply saddening but beautifully written and moving account of the 1937 Parsley Massacre in Haiti. The story is told through the eyes of a young woman, living in the Dominican Republic, near the border, as a servant to a wealthy army family. The author's simple but gorgeous prose takes us back-and-forth, describing her past and her life as a Haitian immigrant, the events leading up to the massacre, the deep and soulful love that she shares with a cane worker, and everything that happens afterwards. It's a really harrowing story about a historical event that I didn't know much about, and the author did such a good job of making it very stark, realistic, and just absolutely cutting. It's always so depressing reading about historical events like this, knowing the truth of knowing that things like this actually happened. The love story and the friendships and the complicated relationships are all so wonderfully rendered and I felt so fiercely for our protagonist, Annabel. The author has this way of depicting grief and loss and the inevitable ways that people are forced to cope that was just really striking.

Listened to the audiobook read by Adenrele Ojo, who is one of my favourite narrators ever, but I'm not really in love with this one. She does a sort of Haitian accent throughout the whole book, including the pros, which makes sense since there's a lot of dialect and Creole words used in the pros sometimes. Something that I love. But it didn't sound quite natural, and it's obvious that it's not her actual accent, so I don't know. (Still love her voice though.) Danticat has really beautiful writing, and there's so much more of her backlist that I'm looking forward to. Huge kudos.

Content warnings:

Spoiler

mass murder, torture, descriptions of torture, injury and gore, drowning

But nature has no memory. And soon, perhaps, neither will I.

melliebaron's review

5.0

I am a little ashamed to say that this is my first book my Edwidge Danticat. I think like many Haitians right now in these times of uncertainties I am welcoming anything that reminds me a little bit of home in my life. Throughout the book it seems like Amabelle was destined for a life of misery and bad luck but I couldn't help myself to hope that one day Sebastien was going to show up apologizing that he couldn't make it to her sooner and she would finally get her happy ending.. the happy ending she so deserved. Ultimately her grief consumed her; this book broke my heart.