Book Review: Edwidge Danticat
The Farming of Bones by Edwidge Danticat
I read this book recently for a class, and I highly recommend it. In the midst of a syllabus of non-fiction, The Farming of Bones had captured my attention since the day my used copy arrived in the mail. I thought that I would breeze through it – it’s a thin book, with rather unobtrusive cover art, and the only thing I knew about Edwidge Danticat came from brief mentions of her compelling storytelling skills from friends who had read her other books.
Where I usually have to bury myself in my little Brooklyn apartment hunched over a reading light in silence or listening to dramatic, instrumental movie soundtracks in order to fully digest my readings for the week, I found myself reading this book everywhere. Frankly, it was a little unnerving being everywhere reading it, but I couldn’t put it down. Edwidge has this way of transporting you through her writing, and seeing as this book is about a violent event on the Dominican side of the border with Haiti in the year 1937, I found myself shifting between two places, two times, as I carried the book with me and read. I’d be walking down the subway stairs, then washing at the river with other servants and caneworkers. I’d get onto the B train at West 4th, only to find out that the plan to escape across the border had been discovered. Fumbling with my freezing fingers to unlock the door to my apartment, feeling the sun beating down on the small group weaving through mountain trails. Opening the refrigerator, feeling my stomach drop at the sight of parsley.