Katia D. Ulysse's Drifting

It was a blustery dawn when we began our four-hour plane ride to Port-au-Prince. The plane burst with college-aged sets in matching Pray for Haiti Now! and Save Haiti Today! T-shirts. They boasted about their plans for saving the so-called poorest nation in the Western hemisphere. They congratulated one another on their novel ideas. They would do what Haitians could not do for themselves. They would Tweet and post proof of their hard work on social networking sites (16).

Katia D. Ulysse has written an engaging debut novel, Drifting. While structurally the novel is reminiscent of Danticat's The Dew Breaker, and even thematically it reminds one of Danticat's first novel on Haitian immigrant women, Ulysse explores how uprooting the immigrant experience can be in novel ways. The various women and their families are tied together by their roots in Puits Blain, and each experience the effects of immigration in New York differently. Drawing on rural Haiti, the class system, Vodou and folklore, Ulysse shows how immigrating to the US, while often seen as the only real option, does not always retain or strengthen families or improve one's economic station, as evidenced by Marianne and Sagesse, who never experience the so-called "American Dream."

The other families also experience the lack of the so-called "paradise" of New York City through poverty, the struggles of assimilation, a predatory ESL teacher, and family discord. Back in Haiti, things are no better, given the loss of heritage, land, and further decline experienced by many families (Boursicault's funeral business, making him the wealthiest man in the land, is full of dark humor, although he ends up purchasing most of Madan Casseus's land).

Ulysse also has a sense of humor for "difficult" portions of the novel, such as the chapter, "Bereavement Pay." This chapter explores, with a sense of humor, how Haitians in the US found it difficult to take time from work to look for their kin after the earthquake. In addition, the author goes out of her way to allude to popular music, history, religious themes, and folklore to make the story more believable and pertinent to the theme of loss as a result of immigration in the US. The use of Creole, the language dilemma of Creole versus French, the X-signers (the illiterate poor who sacrifice everything to send their children to school) as well as gender roles complicate the narrative. Indeed, while there might be some flexibility and greater "freedom" for women in America, sexism follows them.

Unfortunately, Ulysse does not dedicate more of the pages to Michelle and Freda, whose tale begins the novel. The two sisters experience the 2010 earthquake, but none of the future chapters of the book explore the ramifications of the earthquake. This begs the question, why include the first chapter in the book? Although it certainly aligns well with other themes and families in the text, it is disappointing that more of the book does not address that catastrophe. Perhaps it is one of those cases where more is said with less words.