The Dew Breaker

By: Edwidge Danticat

Narrated by: Robin Miles

From the universally acclaimed author of Breath, Eyes, Memory and Krik? Krak!, a brilliant, deeply moving work of fiction that explores the world of a "dew breaker", a torturer, a man whose brutal crimes in the country of his birth lie hidden beneath his new American reality.

We meet him late in his life. He is a quiet man, a husband and father, a hardworking barber, a kindly landlord to the men who live in a basement apartment in his home. He is a fixture in his Brooklyn neighborhood, recognizable by the terrifying scar on his face. As the book unfolds, moving seamlessly between Haiti in the 1960s and New York City today, we enter the lives of those around him: his devoted wife and rebellious daughter; his sometimes unsuspecting, sometimes apprehensive neighbors, tenants, and clients. And we meet some of his victims.

In the book's powerful denouement, we return to the Haiti of the dew breaker's past, to his last, desperate act of violence, and to his first encounter with the woman who will offer him a form of redemption, albeit imperfect, that will change him forever. The Dew Breaker is a book of interconnected lives, a book of love, remorse, and hope; of rebellions both personal and political; of the compromises we often make in order to move beyond the most intimate brushes with history. Unforgettable, deeply resonant, The Dew Breaker proves once more that in Edwidge Danticat we have a major American writer.

Hear Edwidge Danticat, Dave Eggers, Cynthia Ozick, and Orhan Pamuk discuss literature and politics at The New Yorker Festival. Also, don't miss Danticat's conversation with Chang-rae Lee.©2004 Edwidge Danticat (P)2004 Recorded Books

Critic reviews

• PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist, 2005

"Courageous. . . . Beautiful. . . . The Dew Breaker is brilliant book, undoubtedly the best one yet by an enormously talented writer." (The Washington Post Book World)
"Danticat's gift is to combine both sympathy and clarity in a moral tangle that becomes as tight as a Haitian community." (Time)
"A devastating story of love, delusion, and history." (O, The Oprah Magazine)

Excellent Narrator

Interesting story, excellent narrator, the story was a little hard to follow at times, but comes together nicely at the end.

Hypnotic!!

How the mother and father meet left me in awe of this author!!
I'm a fan from now and forever!!

A story about dysfunction and consequences of evil

Robin Miles portrays the ensemble characters well in this novel told from the perspective of characters organized by the actions of one of them in the past in Haiti. The evil dysfunction and decay of Haiti is the under current. How the characters live with the consequences is the driving force. Danticat’s writing is tight and visceral, and maintains the foreboding that the characters live. The structure Danticat writes is Faulknerian, right out of AS I LAY DYING. It works well, creating a menacing, lingering reaction upon reading.

Tangled Earbuds 58

I have seen Edwidge Danticat on Book reviews for years. Never thought I would be able to read her books. I was so wrong, I am pleasantly surprised she’s an excellent writer, and my ears just love Robin Miles’s narration. I have put more of Edwidge Danticat’s books on my wishlist. This was an excellent listen and great story.

Spell-binding

Edwidge Danticat has taken several disparate elements--stories from various times and set in various places--and baked a delicious cake with them. Each chapter is a short story in itself, but they are all brought together by the person of the "dew breaker:" a man whose job it was to come in the early morning hours to drag people away for torture and killing under the Duvalier regimes in Haiti. Not knowing until the end how each story relates to the others adds to the tension of this well-written story.

The icing on the cake, though, is the reading, which incorporates Creole, French, American-Creole and American inner-city Ebonics (sometimes more than one of these are heard in the same conversation) to deliver a far better reading than I could have supplied for myself.

Love Edwidge Danticat

I have a deeper appreciation for the Haitian people and their struggle. The delicate approach to a heady subject matter, with deep rich characters, elegant imagery for each setting gives the reader/listener the perfect chance to immerse themselves into the experiences portrayed.

Absolutely Loved!!!

Honestly, I am not the type of person to leave a review but I HAD to for this book. 10/10 plot and 10/10 performance. Will definitely be listening again!

Disjointed

I just couldn't get into this book. I found it confusing - switching to completely different characters in every chapter, half the time I didn't know who they were talking about or how they fit into the whole scheme of things. It had potential as a book, but it never made me care because of the rapid shifting. Sometimes an audible book just grabs you - with this one, I kept having to force myself to concentrate harder and harder to figure out what was going on and the author's story line just wasn't worth the concentration, imho.

is redemption possible

this work focuses on the possibility of redemption, and life choices are colored by one environment

Almost, but not quite

This book was a great character study, but it didn't go far enough. We meet many characters once, hear part of their story, but never learn why they're important to the story, other than that they once knew the barber. Lots of pieces are left hanging. The book summary suggests that the Dew Breaker turned his life around because of the woman he meets ... I would say he was actually motivated by fear of capture and death at the hands of his former colleagues, when he bungled a job. It felt like the book ended, when it was really only halfway through the potential story. Too bad.