I’m not saying that all books about Haiti need to be political, and talk about the earthquake and the rampant poverty, but these issues were already centrefold to the story and I felt that they could have been explored more. Her white husband, while problematic for a host of reasons, seemed more self aware of the cruel irony of living in mansions with help on an island where most people didn’t even have access to clean water. I come from an island that is very much divided among those class and wealth lines and I felt that Mireille was extremely removed and out of touch with the social dynamics at stake on her island. I felt that there was a missed opportunity for an important social commentary on the blatant division between the have and the have nots on a stricken island like Haiti. I wasn’t convinced by Mireille’s and Michael’s relationship, painted as perfect and idyllic when, in fact, it was a somewhat toxic relationship based on childish communication and tantrums, physical violence at times and very icky romantic scenes (I’m not a fan of romance as a genre so this is just me). I only gave this book 3 stars for a couple of reasons. It’s an uncomfortable truth, but it is a truth nonetheless. That’s a fact and Gay makes sure that this thought hits home. You can just continuing living, but you will never find the person you were before.
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You can’t just move on when you’ve been raped. The second part of the book, focused on the impossibility of readjusting to real life when the people who love you cannot begin to comprehend what you and your body and your mind just went through, were raw and necessary. I even thought to myself: isn’t this too much? But then I realised that rape is in essence too much and it is literally unimaginable to conjure and process such violence for those of us lucky enough to not have been raped in their lives. I won’t linger on those scenes because they were extremely graphic – I felt bile rise up in my throat while reading some scenes. The descriptions of rape and the suffering the protagonist endures while being tortured were brutal and nightmare inducing. Gay shows the the ramifications of sexual violence and rape in all its uncomfortable and squirming aspects, during and after the kidnapping. The book is the story of how her father refuses to give into the kidnappers’ blackmail, and how Mireille attempts to survive and forget herself during 13 long days at the hands of a gang of underprivileged blood thirsty men, sucked dry and emboldened by the lack of opportunities and the rife social injustice on the island. In exchange for her safety, they demand a hefty ransom from her father, a rich, self-made son of Haiti who lives in a gated paradise on the island. One day while vacationing in Haiti, she is abducted by a group of armed thugs, who ambush her car and rip her out of her husband’s grasp. Mireille Duval is a Haitian-American lawyer with a perfect life, perfect husband, perfect child.
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This was a hard, excruciating read that should come with a trigger warning for victims of rape.