The Vortex Family

Desiring to read some Haitian fiction before plunging into science fiction and other topics, I came across the English translation of Jean Metellus's The Vortex Family. Translated by Michael Richardson, the text comes off as very poetic and oblique, with the occasional UK slang or expressions. The text's lack of exposition and shifting, poetic nature in its several short chapters or snippets can be occasionally beautiful and lyrical, despite its depressing themes of exile and political corruption in Haiti. Loosely based on the tumultuous falls of Estime, Magloire and Fignole, the novel focuses on the various descendants of Solon Vortex who, due to their response or involvement with politics, are forced into exile. The Vortex, descendants of Africans and Indians, are of the 'middling' sector in Haitian society that came to power in the post-1946 years, encompassing doctors, military professionals, university lecturers, teachers, chemists, and Catholic clergy.

The novel felt particularly strong when covering the fall of Estime (and Edgard Vortex), detailing the various social classes in conflict that made it seem almost inevitable that a coup would occur. The same process recurs with the fictionalized versions of Magloire and Fignole, demonstrating how Haiti's political chaos of the immediate pre-Duvalier years paved the way for the full terrors of Duvalierism. Some of the literary symbolism of the novel is also quite convincing, particularly the cockfight in Saltrou between a Dominican and a Haitian with a conclusion showing just how powerless the victor becomes. Olga, the matriarch of the Vortex family, is also worth mention. As the last descendant of an "Indian" family tracing its origins back to the Arawaks, Olga is the only character in modern Haitian fiction that I can think of who is "Amerindian." Whether or not the author actually believed there were Haitian descendants of the indigenous population who also inherited aspects of their culture is beyond my knowledge, but it is an interesting example of the Native heritage of Haiti as a living tradition, albeit still en route to extinction despite Olga's seven children. The indigenous past of the island seems to be invoked to tie together the African antecedence of Solon and the Arawak heritage of his wife to proffer the Vortex clan as the rightful heirs of Haitian autonomy. 

Despite its interesting, fictionalized interpretation of Haiti before the even more horrendous days of Duvalier, the novel's lack of exposition can, at times, make for a thinly-plotted novel. Out of nowhere, characters are suddenly targeted by the military as dissidents without any real explanation or plot development. Some passages are actually a little confusing when this occurs. But the novel makes up for its thinness with passages of rare beauty and longing for a better Haiti. Despite its shortcomings, it helps us understand the social and economic conditions that led to the Duvalier dictatorship through the lives of people who, willingly or unwillingly, found themselves engulfed in the political conflicts, coups, and civil unrest of an era of great promise.