God Loves Haiti by Dimitry Elias Léger

Abstract

the products processed to be sold abroad. The letters he writes to promote his coconut products wind up, as Kracht recounts in fond detail, years later as toilet paper in other imperial outposts. At the same time he writes to attract fellow “cocovorists,” but this results only in some very minor and, indeed, ultimately abortive experiments. The real Engelhardt died not long after the First World War, but Kracht’s fictive avatar persists until he is discovered by the US Navy as the Second World War is ending . Crew members clean him up and take him to Guadalcanal where they give him “a dark brown, sugary, rather tasty liquid to drink from a glass bottle slightly tapered in the middle” and “a type of sausage brushed with garishly bright-colored sauce that lies in a bed of oblong bread as soft as a down pillow.” I will leave it to the reader to puzzle out what these consumables might be, but I cite them as typically reflective of Kracht’s amusingly oblique, wonderful historical style (befitting the exotic tales of that era) and his even more wonderful humor. The fates of both the zealots and of the natives are mostly sad, occasionally tragic, but when Kracht renders them in language ranging from theological casuistry to absolute slapstick comedy one hoots one’s way through the book. Serious lessons, yes, but hilariously told. Translator Daniel Bowles has done an excellent job in conveying these qualities in his highly faithful and exacting translation: a thoroughly charming read. Ulf Zimmermann Kennesaw State University Dimitry Elias Léger. God Loves Haiti. New York. HarperCollins / Amistad. 2015. isbn 9780062348135 In his debut novel, God Loves Haiti, Dimitry Elias Léger uses the 2010 earthquake in Haiti as the backdrop for a love triangle. A flaccid, fictionalized president—“the President ”—and his much-younger, philandering wife—Natasha—are about to board a plane supplied by the United States government that will fly the newly wed couple to Florence to live lives of lavish, chosen exile. The latter’s lover, Alain, is locked in her closet in the National Palace and realizes he has been dumped. After the thirty-five-second goudougoudou , the three are separated and spend the rest of the novel on their own journeys of self-discovery. The president, once an impotent leader of the country, finds a capacity to lead in one of Haiti’s darkest hours. Natasha works to understand the connection between her highly collectible art and her legacy of being orphaned by parents who could not afford to care for her. Alain becomes part of a poor community working to emerge from the earthquake— even though he always lived in the rich Place Boyer unscathed by the disaster and where his parents wait and assume their only son is dead. As the three trudge through the aftermath of the quake looking for each other, each finds a different relationship with God while attempting to understand Haiti’s propensity for disaster and its tenacity in recovering . Alain’s initial understanding that an earthquake just threw him from his car encapsulates Haiti’s relationship with catastrophe : “But there’s no history of earthquakes in Haiti. None whatsoever. His parents , grandparents, and great-grandparents never mentioned it. And picking apart the nation’s colorful, sorrowful, and thrilling history is all Haitians do. It’s a sport, the fucking national pastime.” Through their travels, the reader learns the backstory of the protagonists and how they have come to be in their position at the moment of the quake. The deft maneuvering among the three allows the reader to connect with each, and when they finally do find themselves in the same space—a church—the reader is satisfied with the novel’s climax. The title derives from of one of the many conversations throughout the novel in which a character questions God’s Raymond Bock Atavisms Pablo Strauss, tr. Dalkey Archive Thirteen largely disconnected stories set in Quebec comprise this interesting, often unnerving book. Though the tales told within follow different people in different eras, they contain threads that echo across time and space, affecting the lives of the characters within the stories. Written...