Mouths Don't Speak

October 9, 2017
In Ulysse’s powerful novel, Jacqueline has lived outside Haiti for over two decades, but news of the 2010 earthquake upends her life. She desperately tries to reach her wealthy department store magnate parents in Port-au-Prince but each failed call further cements her assumption that they did not survive. Her husband, Kevin, a former marine with PTSD, has nothing but tenderness for her as he cares for their young daughter, Amber. Jacqueline’s pain transforms to frustration when her mother calls a month later from Miami, where they have safely been since shortly after the earthquake, a small taste of the self-involvement that curdled their relationship. Still feeling dislocated, Jacqueline begins Creole lessons with an eccentric and challenging American who lived in Haiti for years. Against her husband’s strenuous objections (which she shrugs off as an offshoot of his trauma), Jacqueline takes their daughter to Haiti. A tragic accident shortly after their arrival causes a massive fissure between Kevin and Jacqueline. As Ulysse (Drifting) explores grief, she moves beyond her protagonist to consider the murky motivations and emotions of other characters. This is a harrowing, thoughtful dive into the aftermath of national and personal tragedies filtered through diasporic life.

November 1, 2017

A Pushcart Prize-nominated poet and Kratz Center Writer in Residence at Goucher College, Ulysse has received many accolades since the publication of her early poetry collections and her novel Drifting. This latest work further demonstrates her refined storytelling appeal and deep connection to her homeland, Haiti. After the massive earthquake that devastated the country in 2010, Jacqueline Florestant, who long ago moved away, is riddled with worry about her parents. Already dealing with a gauntlet of emotions as the mother of a three-year-old, wife of a U.S. marine dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder, and teacher to underprivileged students, she returns to Haiti only to find a land she hardly recognizes, one that's vastly different from the place she left and now devastated by Mother Nature. VERDICT A captivating portrait of a woman plagued with worry about family and homeland, this beautifully written novel recalls Toni Morrison's Paradise. For lovers of historical and literary fiction.--Ashanti White, Fayetteville, NC

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

December 1, 2017
Jacqueline's relationship with her parents in Haiti is on the edge anyway, but the 2010 earthquake that ravaged the country shook their household even more violently. Having grown up in the lap of luxury, Jacqueline is sent to the U.S. to finish her studies, a move motivated by her mother's personal reasons. As Ulysse's debut novel opens, Jacqueline is living in the U.S. with Kevin, her husband, a war veteran with trauma of his own, and their precious three-year-old daughter, Amber. The earthquake gives Jacqueline's mother, Annette Florestant, more ammunition to persuade her daughter to visit her homeland. After all, Paul, Jacqueline's father, is nursing a serious leg injury in the earthquake's aftermath. When Jacqueline caves in and does finally return, she has to not only confront the remnants of a childhood weighed down by heavy parental expectations but also make peace with new family secrets. Ulysse punctuates occasionally overwrought descriptions of the lush Florestant plantation with insightful observations about strained family dynamics. The ties that bind can also constrict us.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)