Occasionally the matter-of-fact tone of the swift, simple prose in Breath, Eyes, Memory seems inappropriate for its subject matter -- which includes rape and sexual abuse as well as third world political strife -- but Ms. Danticat's calm clarity of vision takes on the resonance of folk art. In the end, her book achieves an emotional complexity that lifts it out of the realm of the potboiler and into that of poetry ... Ms. Danticat...is extraordinarily ambitious in the number of psychological and intellectual themes she introduces in Breath, Eyes, Memory. She is also extraordinarily successful.
Breath, Eyes, Memory is a novel that rewards a reader again and again with small but exquisite and unforgettable epiphanies. You can actually see Danticat grow and mature, come into her own strength as a writer, throughout the course of this quiet, soul-penetrating story about four generations of women trying to hold on to one another in the Haitian diaspora ... The writing in Breath, Eyes, Memory is loaded with folk wisdom and fairy tales, the imagery of fear and pain, and an understated political subtext that makes this first novel much, much more than the elementary domestic story it might have been, were it not for the author's Haitianness.
A distinctive new voice with a sensitive insight into Haitian culture distinguishes this graceful debut novel about a young girl's coming of age under difficult circumstances ... Though her tale is permeated with a haunting sadness, Danticat also imbues it with color and magic, beautifully evoking the pace and character of Creole life, the feel of both village and farm communities ... In simple, lyrical prose enriched by an elegiac tone and piquant observations, she makes Sophie's confusion and guilt, her difficult assimilation into American culture and her eventual emotional liberation palpably clear.
Sexual traumas link a Haitian mother and her daughter in this wonderfully self-assured debut by 24-year-old Haitian-American Danticat ... Danticat keeps graceful control of this difficult material while adroitly sketching the larger political context and making both peasants and pediatricians equally convincing. An impressive first outing.
