When Many Stories Are One Story, and That's Okay

Krik? Krak! Edwidge Danticat. 1996.

I read this story for my book group, and I’m glad - I’m not sure I would have picked it up otherwise. There’s no reason it wouldn’t appeal to me, except that my “to be read” list is extremely long and lengthening almost daily, and while Danticat is on it she’s a relatively late addition. I liked her novel Breath, Eyes, Memory very much, enough to want to read more - but I did feel, especially after reflection and conversation, that there was a little bit wanting. It’s very much a first novel by a young writer. There’s nothing wrong with that, but it does have a lot of first novel touches to it. 

I think sometimes writers want to pour everything into their first book because they don’t really believe they’ll get a chance to write another one. Most people, even most writers, never get even one book out, so why waste it? That can give first novels a desperate edge, like the writer is anxious to tell you everything they know before you get up and leave. It takes experience to know when to hold back, and to know that not every story needs to be every story. And it takes the self-assurance that comes to many only after publication to know that they can do it again, that they can leave some tools in the box for next time.

The stories in Krik? Krak! are much more self-assured, and the collection benefits from it. Danticat realized that she didn’t need each story to do everything - and that means, ironically, they can be more universal in their very specificity. Each one is, in a different way, about dreaming of escape. They are very much immigrant stories, even when the particular characters don’t leave Haiti (or wherever else they are); they always keep very close to them the vision of another kind of life just out of reach. It’s the fact that those other lives stay out of reach that lends this collection such poignancy; that, and the fact that the characters are all aware of what gaining a new life will entail. Going to a new place means leaving the old one; a simple truism, but one that can contain within it all of the accomplishment and tragedy and hope and despair of immigration.

And though these characters are all Haitian, some immigrants and some not, and though I know this is fully a Haitian and Haitian-American experience being described, the details are specific and honest enough that you can see universality in it. Many of the characters are parents, and these stories - especially ones like “Children of the Sea” or “Caroline’s Wedding” deal in the terrible sadness of parenting even when things go according to plan. Because here’s another truism that all parents have to learn: in order for my children to have good lives, they’ll have to learn to live without me. Living the best life - which is what I want for them - might mean leaving me behind.

Every one of the short stories in this collection is a sad little gem. I recommend it.