A Novel of Haiti
by Ted Oswald
This book was trying to be too many things at once. It’s a mystery/thriller, a coming of age story, and, as the subtitle suggests, a story about Haiti as a country. I think the novel actually did a pretty good job of doing all of these things, but where Oswald went wrong was in trying to combine them all into one story. It got confusing and there were many times where I was like “What happened to the killer? Have they just completely forgotten about him?”
For that reason it’s hard to say exactly what the premise of this book is. The story takes place over the course of about 4 years and the novel goes back and forth between the past and the present. That part actually worked pretty well because he would introduce a character from the past right before showing an important scene involving them in the present, so the reader was never left thinking “Huh? Who’s this guy? Why should we care?”.
The main character, Libeté (she was born on Haitit’s first day of independence, so her mother thought it was fitting to name her “Liberty”), is forced to move from her home in La Gonave to Cite Soleil at the age of seven when her mother dies. She goes to live with her aunt, where Libeté’s father thinks she will be safe, but Aunt Estelle works Libeté like a slave and beats her when she fancies Libeté to be disobedient. I don’t think she’s all bad, though. She does feed Libeté, give her good clothes, and send her to school, although Libeté is well aware that Estelle does this for her own reputation, not because she actually cares for Libeté.
One day, Libeté and her friend, Jak, stumble upon a couple of dead bodies that have been brutally murdered. Their killer ends up dead half-way through the book, but it doesn’t end there. He was a hired hand, so they still have to find, and bring to justice, whoever hired him. They manage to do that in the second half of the book, and along the way Libeté does a whole lot of growing up.
I love Libeté. She is strong and spunky and she doesn’t take shit from anyone. I have far less respect for the adults around her. There are way too many times when adults are literally cowering before this little child and/or unable to meet her eye. Dudes, she hasn’t even hit puberty yet. Grow some balls.