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papidoc's review against another edition
4.0
Brother, I'm Dying is Edwidge Danticat's memoir of her two fathers, one really her uncle, but who raised her from age four to twelve in Haiti, until her parents, Haitian immigrants, could afford to bring her to live with them in New York City. Clearly she loved both her uncle and her father dearly, and this book is a fitting tribute to their memories. Reading her story, I felt her intimate connection with both men, and with other members of her family. The last third of the book is truly terrifying, revealing the horror of good people caught up in a horrifying machine, built of policies and procedures and unthinking functionaries carrying them out, that chews her uncle up and spits him out without mercy or remorse.
Terrible things happen to good people...we know this. It is an almost inevitable part of every person's life. For me, one of the powerful messages of this book came in seeing the fundamental differences in the deaths of Danticat's father and uncle. Her father died prematurely of a devastating illness, but with family circled around him and bathed in their love and service. Her uncle, on the other hand, suffered a tragic end at the hands of uncaring, almost faceless cogs in the machine of bureaucracy and political preference. The former, though a hard thing for anyone to bear, is at least attributable to mortality and a consequence of life itself. The latter, on the other hand, was completely avoidable, and attributable to people who simply stopped (or never started) caring about him as a human being. That is what I cannot abide, and is a message, a perspective, an imperative, that I try to embed deep within my students before they go off to begin their professional careers. This is also the powerful testimony of Edwidge Danticat, as a witness to the world, that we must not ever lose our humanity.
Terrible things happen to good people...we know this. It is an almost inevitable part of every person's life. For me, one of the powerful messages of this book came in seeing the fundamental differences in the deaths of Danticat's father and uncle. Her father died prematurely of a devastating illness, but with family circled around him and bathed in their love and service. Her uncle, on the other hand, suffered a tragic end at the hands of uncaring, almost faceless cogs in the machine of bureaucracy and political preference. The former, though a hard thing for anyone to bear, is at least attributable to mortality and a consequence of life itself. The latter, on the other hand, was completely avoidable, and attributable to people who simply stopped (or never started) caring about him as a human being. That is what I cannot abide, and is a message, a perspective, an imperative, that I try to embed deep within my students before they go off to begin their professional careers. This is also the powerful testimony of Edwidge Danticat, as a witness to the world, that we must not ever lose our humanity.
alaiyo0685's review against another edition
5.0
As I read Brother, I'm Dying, it gradually became clearer and clearer to me that I'd read it before, possibly back in high school around the time I read a few other Danticat works. Normally when I discover I've already read a book I've picked up, I abandon it for something I know is new. I didn't this time, because I felt as engrossed in the tale as if it were new, even when I remembered what was going to happen next. It's an amazingly well-written family autobiography, that reads much like a novel.
texcajunlibrarian's review against another edition
5.0
An incredibly moving, interesting, and relevant non-fiction novel. Has to be one of the best books I read all year.
kcdarmody's review against another edition
4.0
Death and life, never far apart. This is a raw and touching account of the bonds of family and the pain of life in two worlds. It offers a damning look at US immigration policy where Haitians are concerned. The heart of the memoir is this:
“He shouldn’t be here,” my father said, tearful and breathlessly agitated, shortly before drifting off to sleep that night. “If our country were ever given a chance and allowed to be a country like any other, none of us would live or die here.”
“He shouldn’t be here,” my father said, tearful and breathlessly agitated, shortly before drifting off to sleep that night. “If our country were ever given a chance and allowed to be a country like any other, none of us would live or die here.”
elempr's review against another edition
5.0
Very sad book. Amazing to read this story. Danticat is great
shaynicole's review against another edition
5.0
Words cannot fully express how much I enjoyed reading this book. Not only was it a beautifully written story about Danticat's love for both her father and uncle, it highlights what needs to be addressed about the dangers of political warfare and immigration laws. I would enthusiastically recommend this to anyone.
hakeyplummet's review against another edition
dark
emotional
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
pottsmonica's review against another edition
4.0
Danticat is always elegantly sparse and heartbreaking.
labyrinth_witch's review against another edition
5.0
Edwidge Danticat takes my breath away. Her writing is captivating. I feel completely invested in the people of her story, in her and her family. I feel as if I have lived through the horror and heartbreak of what the US has done to Haiti, of the horrible immigration system, and of the legacy of dehumanizations that we still enact today. I cried through most of this book, so deeply did it touch me. I particularly resonated with the maternal story threads, about mothers giving birth, children and the adult who love them. Family. It really shows how the "boundaries" between the US and Haiti disappear, how one's privilege maps onto another's suffering in the here and now.