RaveThe Los Angeles Review of BooksDanticat’s writerly skill is evident in her use of everyday imagery as a contrast to the magnitude of what is taking place... Ostensibly a guide for writers and readers, The Art of Death, much like the author’s prayer, feels like an offering, a study born of devotion. Part essay, part memoir, part elegy, the book has numerous obsessions — lingual, mortal, and parental — that come together to compelling effect ... Whenever possible Danticat offers histories and anecdotes, recollections and analyses of her subjects, and in one case, when she reaches the limits of her research with the death of a central character in Taiye Selasi’s Ghana Must Go, we are treated to excerpts of her correspondence with the author ...Edwidge Danticat’s The Art of Death offers counterpoint, consolation, and a means of creation to readers and writers alike.
