Book Club Discussion Questions
For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, A Short History of Haiti and our BookBrowse Review of Brother, I'm Dying.
Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
About This Guide
The introduction, questions, and suggestions for
further reading that follow are intended to enhance your group's discussion of
Brother, I'm Dying, a memoir of the tragedy and losses of a Haitian
family and the hope of a new life in America.
About This Book
When she was four, Edwidge Danticat's mother left
Haiti to join her father who had gone to New York two years earlier, leaving her
and her younger brother, Bob, in the care of her father's brother, Joseph.
Edwidge came to think of her uncle Joseph as a second father because he treated
her with such tenderness and because, as a minister, "he knew all the verses for
love" [p. 35]. Until she was twelve, when she finally joined her parents in
Brooklyn, she lived in the Bel Air section of Port-au-Prince as a member of her
uncle's family. While Edwidge struggled to integrate herself into her parents'
household (she and Bob were joining two brothers born in America), her uncle was
absorbing the challenges of life in Haiti as its political situation
deteriorated and violent gangs gained in power. The story Danticat tells is
often disturbing as the people she loves are exposed to misfortune, injustice,
and violence, but ultimately,
Brother, I'm Dying is reassuring in its
expression of deep familial love and enduring bonds.
Reader's Guide
- Danticat tells us that she has constructed the story from the "borrowed
recollections of family members. . . . What I learned from my father and
uncle, I learned out of sequence and in fragments. This is an attempt at
cohesiveness, and at re-creating a few wondrous and terrible months when
their lives and mine intersected in startling ways, forcing me to look
forward and back at the same time" [pp. 25-26]. Discuss what this work of
reconstruction and reordering means for the structure of the story she
presents, as well as for her own understanding of what happened to the two
brothers.
- Consider the scene in which Danticat sees the results of her pregnancy
test. How do her fears for her father affect her first thoughts of her
child? She says to herself, "My father is dying and I'm pregnant"
[pp. 14-15]. How does this knowledge change her sense of time? How does it
affect her understanding of the course of her family's history?
- As a child, Danticat was disturbed at how little her father said in the
letters he sent to the family in Haiti. He later told her, "I was no writer.
. . . What I wanted to tell you and your brother was too big for any piece
of paper and a small envelope" [p. 22]. Why, as a child, did she "used to
dream of smuggling him words" [p. 21]?
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- How does the author develop themes of identity and belonging throughout the narrative?
- What role does the setting play in shaping the characters' decisions and relationships?
- Discuss how the ending reframes the events of the story. Were you surprised?
Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Vintage.
Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.
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