Massacre River
Haitian poet Philoctete's novel paints a graphic picture of the 1937 slaughter of thousands of Haitians during the reign of the Dominican dictator Generalissimo Trujillo. In chapters that alternate among the voices of Trujillo; Pedro, a young Dominican; and Adele, his Haitian wife, the author slowly builds toward his brutal though foregone conclusion. Even as a young child, Trujillo is focused on reclaiming territory lost to Haiti along the Dominican border. Pedro and Adele are apolitical and so devoted to one another that if one disappeared, "the other would languish and die." As Haitians begin to perceive the "menace of Trujillo," Pedro fears for his wife's safety and despises his inability to help her. Philoctete's prose is a galvanizing melange of run-on sentences and surreal imagery, embodied most intensely in one wrenching chapter in which the deaths by machete taking place at the border are juxtaposed with a huge feast taking place in the Haitian capital. A harrowing, historically accurate depiction of a horrific chapter in Haiti's violent history.Deborah DonovanCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved