What do you think?
Rate this book
Everything Inside: Stories
WINNER OF THE STORY PRIZE
WINNER OF THE 2020 VILCEK PRIZE IN LITERATURE
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST
Named a Best Book of 2019 by NPR, Time, BuzzFeed, and Esquire
From the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author of Brother, I'm Dying, a collection of vividly imagined stories about community, family, and love.
Rich with hard-won wisdom and humanity, set in locales from Miami and Port-au-Prince to a small unnamed country in the Caribbean and beyond, Everything Inside is at once wide in scope and intimate, as it explores the forces that pull us together, or drive us apart, sometimes in the same searing instant.
In these eight powerful, emotionally absorbing stories, a romance unexpectedly sparks between two wounded friends; a marriage ends for what seem like noble reasons, but with irreparable consequences; a young woman holds on to an impossible dream even as she fights for her survival; two lovers reunite after unimaginable tragedy, both for their country and in their lives; a baby's christening brings three generations of a family to a precarious dance between old and new; a man falls to his death in slow motion, reliving the defining moments of the life he is about to lose.
Dosas --
In the old days --
The Port-au-Prince marriage special --
The gift --
Hot-air balloons --
Sunrise, sunset --
Seven stories --
Without inspection
WINNER OF THE 2020 VILCEK PRIZE IN LITERATURE
NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD FINALIST
Named a Best Book of 2019 by NPR, Time, BuzzFeed, and Esquire
From the internationally acclaimed, best-selling author of Brother, I'm Dying, a collection of vividly imagined stories about community, family, and love.
Rich with hard-won wisdom and humanity, set in locales from Miami and Port-au-Prince to a small unnamed country in the Caribbean and beyond, Everything Inside is at once wide in scope and intimate, as it explores the forces that pull us together, or drive us apart, sometimes in the same searing instant.
In these eight powerful, emotionally absorbing stories, a romance unexpectedly sparks between two wounded friends; a marriage ends for what seem like noble reasons, but with irreparable consequences; a young woman holds on to an impossible dream even as she fights for her survival; two lovers reunite after unimaginable tragedy, both for their country and in their lives; a baby's christening brings three generations of a family to a precarious dance between old and new; a man falls to his death in slow motion, reliving the defining moments of the life he is about to lose.
Dosas --
In the old days --
The Port-au-Prince marriage special --
The gift --
Hot-air balloons --
Sunrise, sunset --
Seven stories --
Without inspection
222 pages, Paperback
First published August 27, 2019
1620 people are currently reading
28943 people want to read
About the author
Edwidge Danticat
134 books2,798 followersEdwidge Danticat is a Haitian American novelist and short story writer. Her first novel, Breath, Eyes, Memory, was published in 1994 and went on to become an Oprah's Book Club selection. Danticat has since written or edited several books and has been the recipient of many awards and honors. Her work has dealt with themes of national identity, mother-daughter relationships, and diasporic politics. In 2023, she was named the Wun Tsun Tam Mellon Professor of the Humanities in the department of African American and African Diaspora Studies at Columbia University.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,384 reviews
February 1, 2020
I really enjoyed these stories. They are quiet and careful and every story has a breathtaking moment that is perfectly written. The narrators were particularly interesting, each one grappling with a sense of displacement, of standing apart from the rest of the world. There is also a weariness in many of these stories as women surrender to forces beyond the control. These stories gave me a lot to think about.
Danticat remains one of our finest writers.
Danticat remains one of our finest writers.
November 3, 2020
This is an outstanding collection of 8 beautifully constructed short stories from Edwidge Danticat, wide ranging in scope, superb in their exploration of the intricate and complex nature of relationships, familial, personal and friendships, of love, loss, grief, trauma and heartbreak. At the heart of the stories are primarily Haitians, in Little Haiti in Florida and in Haiti itself, capturing the nature of being a migrant, the precarious and dangerous position of being part of the boat people, forming the diaspora, connections with Haiti, some yearning to return, and the impact of natural disasters such as earthquakes in the home country. There are marriages, some of which are detours in life, others that are more dispassionate affairs, an ex-husband wanting money from his ex-wife, Elsie, to pay the ransom for his abducted wife, Olivia.
25 year old Nadia arrives on a plane with the intention of meeting her dying father for the first time, a tale referencing Albert Camus's The Stranger, finding herself involved in the funeral rites. A young nanny with AIDS works in a hotel, naive enough to believe in the Port-au-Prince marriage special, with her love me and leave me ring. Anika Thomas is meeting her married lover for the first time in 7 months, luring him with the promise of a gift, mourning her spirit child, sketching birds, her lover a scarred and changed man after being struck by tragedy and mental health issues. Two women, students from widely different social and economic backgrounds form a close relationship, one with a tattoo on her chest that looks like two hot air balloons. Carole, suffering from dementia, has little truck with a daughter experiencing problems after giving birth to her son, all of which culminates with its echoes of childhood games such as peekaboo, sunrise and sunset, a hello and goodbye.
At the age of 7, two small girls forge a unforgettable connection in Brooklyn, New York, never to see each other again, until as adults, Callie, now the Prime Minister's wife, invites Kimberly to the island after reading her short story, a friendship arising from devastating trauma. A man's life flashes in front of him as he plummets from the top of a building on a construction site to his death as he lands in the cement mixer. A period which illuminates his relationship with Darline and his son, Paris, of being saved after the terrors and dangers of being one of the boat people. Danticat's use of the short story format is extraordinarily expert in encapsulating emotional depth, subtle and nuanced depictions of humanity and its myriad of relationships. A truly memorable collection of short stories that I recommend highly. Many thanks to Quercus for an ARC.
25 year old Nadia arrives on a plane with the intention of meeting her dying father for the first time, a tale referencing Albert Camus's The Stranger, finding herself involved in the funeral rites. A young nanny with AIDS works in a hotel, naive enough to believe in the Port-au-Prince marriage special, with her love me and leave me ring. Anika Thomas is meeting her married lover for the first time in 7 months, luring him with the promise of a gift, mourning her spirit child, sketching birds, her lover a scarred and changed man after being struck by tragedy and mental health issues. Two women, students from widely different social and economic backgrounds form a close relationship, one with a tattoo on her chest that looks like two hot air balloons. Carole, suffering from dementia, has little truck with a daughter experiencing problems after giving birth to her son, all of which culminates with its echoes of childhood games such as peekaboo, sunrise and sunset, a hello and goodbye.
At the age of 7, two small girls forge a unforgettable connection in Brooklyn, New York, never to see each other again, until as adults, Callie, now the Prime Minister's wife, invites Kimberly to the island after reading her short story, a friendship arising from devastating trauma. A man's life flashes in front of him as he plummets from the top of a building on a construction site to his death as he lands in the cement mixer. A period which illuminates his relationship with Darline and his son, Paris, of being saved after the terrors and dangers of being one of the boat people. Danticat's use of the short story format is extraordinarily expert in encapsulating emotional depth, subtle and nuanced depictions of humanity and its myriad of relationships. A truly memorable collection of short stories that I recommend highly. Many thanks to Quercus for an ARC.
August 5, 2019
I just adore Danticat and her writing. She zeroes in on those torn between Haiti and their homes in the US. Families and death, scars inside or out, living with what they've seen in the past or experienced in the present when visiting Haiti. Things that have changed their lives, in big or small ways. Emotions they carry inside themselves.
Eight stories and I loved them all. Some were more intense than others, but many seem to hinge on a decision that they either make on the spot or have made in the past. The author has such an insight into families and of course into Haiti, its current political climate and its past. Her stories are always interesting and give one a glimpse into a cou try that many don't know about.
ARC from Edelweiss.
Eight stories and I loved them all. Some were more intense than others, but many seem to hinge on a decision that they either make on the spot or have made in the past. The author has such an insight into families and of course into Haiti, its current political climate and its past. Her stories are always interesting and give one a glimpse into a cou try that many don't know about.
ARC from Edelweiss.
April 15, 2020
Everything Inside is a beautiful book of 8 short stories about Haïtian people in varying degrees of distress due to violence, diaspora, and broken hearts. Each story is equally poignant talking about displacement for immigrants to Brooklyn and Miami. I grew up in Miami and recall the arrival of boats from Haïti during the two Duvalier regimes (described in the final story "Without Inspection"). I did not live near Little Haïti however and only came into rare contact with these refugees. Nevertheless, their stories always moved me, so much so that in my junior year in high school, I took a trip with a friend's church which showed us most of the western coast of the island and featured a week (or was it 10 days?) on the smaller island of La Gonave. The countryside that Danticat describes in "Seven Stories" matches perfectly with my visual and olfactory memories of that fateful trip. I enjoyed "Dosas", the first story, with its twist at the end. In fact, all of the stories are rich in Creole culture and a true pleasure to read.
A few quotes to whet your appetites:
Dosas
From her experience working with the weak and the sick, she’d learned that the disease you ignore is the one that kills you, so she tried her best to have everything out in the open.
My father no longer looked like he was sleeping. A sliver of white was visible through his half-open left eyelid. A veiled world remained hidden behind that small gap, a world I had never been privy to, a world I’d never know. In the old days, coins might have been placed over his eyes to keep me from seeing even this much of the windows to his soul.
The Port-au-Prince Marriage Special
This is in part a guide and hotelier’s job. If guests show up hungry, you feed them. If they want drink, you ply them. If they want to be left alone, you make yourself scarce. If they want company, you entertain. If they are lovelorn, you find them love. And if they show up sick, you find them treatment quickly before they expire on your watch.
I knew what she was thinking. These half-assed outsiders, these no-longer-fully-Haitian, almost-blan, foreigner-type people, these dyaspora with their mushy thinking, why does it all come back to one kind of love with them, the kind of love you keep talking about rather than the kind of love that shatters you to pieces? Don’t these die-ass-poor-aahs, these dyaspowa and dyasporèn, these outside-minded kings and queens, know that there are many other ways to show love than to be constantly talking about it?
Hot Air Ballons
“I am too easily swayed by every story I hear, or see, or witness, especially the tragic ones,” she said. “I think this is going to be the story of my life. I’m going to be the girl who is too easily swayed by other people’s stories.” “I think you’re going to be the girl who helps other people,” I said. “A Mother Teresa type.”
The Tainos [a Caribbean native tribe indigenous to Haïti and nearby islands] believed themselves to have originally been cave people who would turn into stone when touched by sunlight. They knew the risk when they stepped into the light, but they did it anyway in order to create a new world, a world that continues to exist, because we are still here. I thought that the next time we were chatting while half-asleep, I might tell Neah that story. In the meantime, while she was still asleep, I lowered my right wrist to the crevice between her breasts and let it rest there for a moment. And briefly, very briefly, my pain and hers embraced.
Sunrise, Sunset
Doesn’t she realize that the life she is living is an accident of fortune? Doesn’t she know that she is an exception in this world, where it is normal to be unhappy, to be hungry, to work nonstop and earn next to nothing, and to suffer the whims of everything from tyrants to hurricanes and earthquakes?
Sometimes you just have to shake the devil off you, whatever that devil is. Even if you don’t feel like living for yourself, you have to start living for your child, for your children.
It would be appropriate, if only she could make herself believe that this is what her daughter is actually doing. It would be a fitting close to her family life, or at least to life with her children. You are always saying hello to them while preparing them to say goodbye to you. You are always dreading the separations, while cheering them on, to get bigger, smarter, to crawl, babble, walk, speak, to have birthdays that you hope you’ll live to see, that you pray they’ll live to see. Jeanne will now know what it’s like to live that way, to have a part of yourself walking around unattached to you, and to love that part so much that you sometimes feel as though you were losing your mind.
Seven Stories
She pointed to some coils of light winding their way throughout the city. They were people, hundreds of them, dressed in white and carrying candles as they walked toward the port and the sea. “It’s called a shedding,” she said. “As you walk to the sea, you shed from both your body and spirit all the awful things that have happened to you in the previous year.”
On Three Kings’ Eve, my parents used to make me leave my shoes by my bedroom door for an angel to fill with rolls of hair ribbons while I slept. Before I went to sleep, they would tell me about a bad decision made by this angel, who they said looked like whoever is the most beautiful woman I know. This angel had been asked by the Three Kings to join them on their journey to bring gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the baby Jesus, and for some reason, she had turned them down. The angel regrets her decision to this day, my mother said, which is why she brings small presents to children on the eve of Three Kings’ Day. After we met, I wanted to be her angel and give Callie all my ribbons. Somehow I sensed that something about her needed to be bundled and held tight. Maybe she still needed to be bundled and held tight. Maybe that’s why she’d held on to those ribbons for so long.
Without Inspection
There are loves that outlive lovers. Some version of these words had been his prayer as he fell. Darline would now have two of those. He would also have two: Darline and Paris. He would keep trying to look for them. He would continue to hum along with Darline’s song, and keep whispering in Paris’s ear. He would also try to guide Darline back to the beach, to look for others like him.
My List of 2020 Pulitzer Candidates: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
My blog about the 2020 Pulitzer: https://wp.me/phAoN-19m
A few quotes to whet your appetites:
Dosas
From her experience working with the weak and the sick, she’d learned that the disease you ignore is the one that kills you, so she tried her best to have everything out in the open.
My father no longer looked like he was sleeping. A sliver of white was visible through his half-open left eyelid. A veiled world remained hidden behind that small gap, a world I had never been privy to, a world I’d never know. In the old days, coins might have been placed over his eyes to keep me from seeing even this much of the windows to his soul.
The Port-au-Prince Marriage Special
This is in part a guide and hotelier’s job. If guests show up hungry, you feed them. If they want drink, you ply them. If they want to be left alone, you make yourself scarce. If they want company, you entertain. If they are lovelorn, you find them love. And if they show up sick, you find them treatment quickly before they expire on your watch.
I knew what she was thinking. These half-assed outsiders, these no-longer-fully-Haitian, almost-blan, foreigner-type people, these dyaspora with their mushy thinking, why does it all come back to one kind of love with them, the kind of love you keep talking about rather than the kind of love that shatters you to pieces? Don’t these die-ass-poor-aahs, these dyaspowa and dyasporèn, these outside-minded kings and queens, know that there are many other ways to show love than to be constantly talking about it?
Hot Air Ballons
“I am too easily swayed by every story I hear, or see, or witness, especially the tragic ones,” she said. “I think this is going to be the story of my life. I’m going to be the girl who is too easily swayed by other people’s stories.” “I think you’re going to be the girl who helps other people,” I said. “A Mother Teresa type.”
The Tainos [a Caribbean native tribe indigenous to Haïti and nearby islands] believed themselves to have originally been cave people who would turn into stone when touched by sunlight. They knew the risk when they stepped into the light, but they did it anyway in order to create a new world, a world that continues to exist, because we are still here. I thought that the next time we were chatting while half-asleep, I might tell Neah that story. In the meantime, while she was still asleep, I lowered my right wrist to the crevice between her breasts and let it rest there for a moment. And briefly, very briefly, my pain and hers embraced.
Sunrise, Sunset
Doesn’t she realize that the life she is living is an accident of fortune? Doesn’t she know that she is an exception in this world, where it is normal to be unhappy, to be hungry, to work nonstop and earn next to nothing, and to suffer the whims of everything from tyrants to hurricanes and earthquakes?
Sometimes you just have to shake the devil off you, whatever that devil is. Even if you don’t feel like living for yourself, you have to start living for your child, for your children.
It would be appropriate, if only she could make herself believe that this is what her daughter is actually doing. It would be a fitting close to her family life, or at least to life with her children. You are always saying hello to them while preparing them to say goodbye to you. You are always dreading the separations, while cheering them on, to get bigger, smarter, to crawl, babble, walk, speak, to have birthdays that you hope you’ll live to see, that you pray they’ll live to see. Jeanne will now know what it’s like to live that way, to have a part of yourself walking around unattached to you, and to love that part so much that you sometimes feel as though you were losing your mind.
Seven Stories
She pointed to some coils of light winding their way throughout the city. They were people, hundreds of them, dressed in white and carrying candles as they walked toward the port and the sea. “It’s called a shedding,” she said. “As you walk to the sea, you shed from both your body and spirit all the awful things that have happened to you in the previous year.”
On Three Kings’ Eve, my parents used to make me leave my shoes by my bedroom door for an angel to fill with rolls of hair ribbons while I slept. Before I went to sleep, they would tell me about a bad decision made by this angel, who they said looked like whoever is the most beautiful woman I know. This angel had been asked by the Three Kings to join them on their journey to bring gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the baby Jesus, and for some reason, she had turned them down. The angel regrets her decision to this day, my mother said, which is why she brings small presents to children on the eve of Three Kings’ Day. After we met, I wanted to be her angel and give Callie all my ribbons. Somehow I sensed that something about her needed to be bundled and held tight. Maybe she still needed to be bundled and held tight. Maybe that’s why she’d held on to those ribbons for so long.
Without Inspection
There are loves that outlive lovers. Some version of these words had been his prayer as he fell. Darline would now have two of those. He would also have two: Darline and Paris. He would keep trying to look for them. He would continue to hum along with Darline’s song, and keep whispering in Paris’s ear. He would also try to guide Darline back to the beach, to look for others like him.
My List of 2020 Pulitzer Candidates: https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/1...
My blog about the 2020 Pulitzer: https://wp.me/phAoN-19m
February 22, 2021
This is a DNF.... made it through 50%... I can’t bore myself any longer.
March 23, 2021
Everything Inside is a collection of short stories written by Edwidge Danticat. Danticat is a Haitian-American writer of novels and short fiction. She was born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti and immigrated to the U.S. at the age of twelve.
This is the second book of Danticat’s short stories that I have read. I know many readers do not like short fiction. However, Danticat writing is a prime example that all fiction does not need to be 800 pages or even 300 pages to have an in-depth plot and well defined characters.
There are eight unrelated stories in this book. The themes of these stories deal with loss, pain, grief, and other human emotions. The characters are primarily Haitian-Americans and the settings are Brooklyn, Miami, and Haiti.
Dosas - Elsie a nurses’ assistant is dealt a double blow by her husband who leaves her for her best friend and then they compound this by tricking her out of money.
In the Old Days - Nadia, a teacher finds out her father who she has never met is dying in Miami and that his final wish is to see her before he dies. Her mother had lied to her about her father leaving them in Brooklyn. Now, her father’s wife is lying to her about her father’s last wish. She continues to lie to her when she finally arrives at the house he is at in Miami. She finally gets to see him. It is too late for him, but she gains some understanding of him and closure to a relationship they never had.
The Port-au-Prince Marriage Special - A nanny, for an inn-keepers child, discovers that she has HIV, but claims she does not know how she got it. The child’s mother has empathy but keeps her son away from the nanny. The nanny’s mother, a cook for the inn-keeper, calls her daughter a whore. Her employer tries to get help for her and gets duped. The nanny ends up with The-Port-au-Prince Marriage Special which is a cheap ring with the promise of her suitor returning to marry her.
The Gift - A lot has happened since Anika had seen Thomas, her lover, over seven months ago. But she promises him a gift if he meets her for dinner. He agrees and they have dinner and end up at her apartment, afterward. He shows her some of the changes he has experienced since they last met and Anika gives him her gift. He does not want the gift, a painting of his now dead wife and child. A lot has happened in seven months.
Hot-Air Balloons - Lucy is concerned about her college roommate, Neah, who has said that she is dropping out of college after returning from a Thanksgiving trip to Haiti. She has decided to work for an organization that helps victims of rape, after working at a rape recovery clinic on her work-study trip, to Haiti. Lucy and Neah have very different backgrounds however they had got along well together. Both Lucy and Neah’s father do not agree with her decision to drop out of college and try to persuade her to change her mind.
Sunrise, Sunset - A family deals with a mother who has no feeling for her toddler son and a grandmother’s dementia and the impact these issues have on the family.
Seven Stories - Two women come together after many years apart. They first met at about seven years old and had not seen each other since then. One a writer and the other the wife of a Prime Minister. The writer had written an essay on their time together as children and the first-lady read it and invited her to visit. This trip took place during the New Years celebration.
Without Inspection - Arnold is helped by Darline after he swims to shore from a speedboat that had dropped him and other passengers who had paid to escape their island and go to Miami. Darline had frequently come to that spot to help new arrivals get to a shelter. She had arrived at the same spot when she, her husband, and son had made the trip. Her husband drowned. Arnold and Darline end up together. He loves her and her son. In the end, Arnold had six and a half seconds to visit them and try to find a way to stay in their lives.
I really enjoyed this book. The stories are powerful and these short blurbs don’t give a complete picture of them. I am trying to provide a glimpse of the characters and settings, without giving away the story. I recommend this book to those who enjoy short stories and those who want the experience of reading great short fiction.
This is the second book of Danticat’s short stories that I have read. I know many readers do not like short fiction. However, Danticat writing is a prime example that all fiction does not need to be 800 pages or even 300 pages to have an in-depth plot and well defined characters.
There are eight unrelated stories in this book. The themes of these stories deal with loss, pain, grief, and other human emotions. The characters are primarily Haitian-Americans and the settings are Brooklyn, Miami, and Haiti.
Dosas - Elsie a nurses’ assistant is dealt a double blow by her husband who leaves her for her best friend and then they compound this by tricking her out of money.
In the Old Days - Nadia, a teacher finds out her father who she has never met is dying in Miami and that his final wish is to see her before he dies. Her mother had lied to her about her father leaving them in Brooklyn. Now, her father’s wife is lying to her about her father’s last wish. She continues to lie to her when she finally arrives at the house he is at in Miami. She finally gets to see him. It is too late for him, but she gains some understanding of him and closure to a relationship they never had.
The Port-au-Prince Marriage Special - A nanny, for an inn-keepers child, discovers that she has HIV, but claims she does not know how she got it. The child’s mother has empathy but keeps her son away from the nanny. The nanny’s mother, a cook for the inn-keeper, calls her daughter a whore. Her employer tries to get help for her and gets duped. The nanny ends up with The-Port-au-Prince Marriage Special which is a cheap ring with the promise of her suitor returning to marry her.
The Gift - A lot has happened since Anika had seen Thomas, her lover, over seven months ago. But she promises him a gift if he meets her for dinner. He agrees and they have dinner and end up at her apartment, afterward. He shows her some of the changes he has experienced since they last met and Anika gives him her gift. He does not want the gift, a painting of his now dead wife and child. A lot has happened in seven months.
Hot-Air Balloons - Lucy is concerned about her college roommate, Neah, who has said that she is dropping out of college after returning from a Thanksgiving trip to Haiti. She has decided to work for an organization that helps victims of rape, after working at a rape recovery clinic on her work-study trip, to Haiti. Lucy and Neah have very different backgrounds however they had got along well together. Both Lucy and Neah’s father do not agree with her decision to drop out of college and try to persuade her to change her mind.
Sunrise, Sunset - A family deals with a mother who has no feeling for her toddler son and a grandmother’s dementia and the impact these issues have on the family.
Seven Stories - Two women come together after many years apart. They first met at about seven years old and had not seen each other since then. One a writer and the other the wife of a Prime Minister. The writer had written an essay on their time together as children and the first-lady read it and invited her to visit. This trip took place during the New Years celebration.
Without Inspection - Arnold is helped by Darline after he swims to shore from a speedboat that had dropped him and other passengers who had paid to escape their island and go to Miami. Darline had frequently come to that spot to help new arrivals get to a shelter. She had arrived at the same spot when she, her husband, and son had made the trip. Her husband drowned. Arnold and Darline end up together. He loves her and her son. In the end, Arnold had six and a half seconds to visit them and try to find a way to stay in their lives.
I really enjoyed this book. The stories are powerful and these short blurbs don’t give a complete picture of them. I am trying to provide a glimpse of the characters and settings, without giving away the story. I recommend this book to those who enjoy short stories and those who want the experience of reading great short fiction.
August 28, 2021
| | blog | tumblr | ko-fi | |
4 ½ stars (rounded up because I listened to the audiobook which is brilliantly narrated by Robin Miles)
This was such a wonderful and poignant collection of short stories.
In a interview on LitHub Edwige Danticat said that one of the reasons why she loves the short story form is that it allows her “to magnify smaller moments and to linger on these small epiphanies in the smaller interactions that mean so much”, and indeed each one of her stories seems to prolong a particular moment in her characters' lives.
Given the brevity of her stories Danticat doesn't wast any words. And yet, while her writing could be described as both economic and simple, her prose also demonstrated a richness of expression that resonated with the feelings and scenarios experienced by her characters.
Through the wide range of her narratives Danticat examines similar themes in very different ways. Within her stories Danticat navigates the way in which bonds are tested, broken, or strengthened in times of crisis. Most of Danticat's narratives are concerned in particular with the diasporic experiences of Haitians in America, and she emphasises the feelings of longing, loneliness, and displacement experienced by those who are forced to adapt to a new country and a different culture with poignancy and clarity. They are never reduced to the status of 'outsider', and while their shared heritage does mean that they may have had similar experiences, each one of them has a distinctive voice and a particular relationships with the countries they currently inhabit.
With seeming ease Danticat imbues her characters with their own history and personalities, so that within a few pages we would feel as if we'd know them personally, so much so that to define them as characters seems almost an injustice.
Within these narratives the ordinary moments that make up everyday life can carry both enlightening and tragic overtones. These stories centre on the characters' anxieties, hopes, and fears they may harbour for themselves or their loved ones.
In “Dosas” Elsie, a nurse’s assistant, is betrayed by her husband and her own best friend. Months later her now ex-husband calls her and begs her to help pay the ransom for his kidnapped girlfriend, who happens to be Elsie's former friend. His increasingly desperate calls threaten to disrupt the course of her life.
In “The Port-au-Prince Marriage Special” a woman who has returned to Haiti to run a hotel with her husband is confronted with her own privilege when her young nanny is diagnosed with AIDS; the woman has to reconcile herself with her own misjudgement regarding her nanny's mother and with her preference for a white doctor over a local one.
In “Hot-Air Balloons” we observe the bond between two young women, one of which has started to work for Leve a women's organisation in which she witnesses the most brutal aspects of humanity. Still, even when we are presented with these stark accounts of abuse or suffering the story maintains a sense of hope in the genuine relationship between these two women.
Another story that examines the bond between two women is “Seven Stories”. After publishing a short story a writer is contacted by her childhood friend Callie, the daughter of the prime minister of an unnamed island. After her father's assassination Callie was forced to flee from the island and years later our narrator is invited by her friend who has by now married the island’s new prime minister.
The characters in Danticat's stories are often confronted with impossible choices. Within their realities they are forced to contend against betrayal, illnesses, the devastating earthquake of 2010, medical malpractice, kidnappings, and the risks that come with being 'undocumented'. They are made vulnerable by their status or haunted by the knowledge that the world can be a terrible place. Still, while there were many moments of unease, the stories always maintain a vibrancy that made them hard to put down. Her characters demonstrated empathy, love, and compassion so that her stories never felt bleak or hopeless.
I can't recommend this collection enough. These stories were both upsetting and moving, and within each narrative we follow how a certain 'change' forces each character to reassess their own existence. The crisis they experience are depicted with subtlety and consideration. Danticat interrogates serious themes (identity, mortality, grief) whilst focusing on ordinary moments. Phone conversations and dinners become the backdrop for larger debates. Her narratives illuminate the complexities faced by those who are born, or raised, in a country that is now in crisis.
A heart-rendering collection< of stories that provided me with a lot food for thought and which I will be definitely reading again.
2nd reading:
I have now read it again and I found as compelling as the first time. This may be the first collection of short stories I've ever re-read and it surprised by how many details had stayed with me from the first reading.
4 ½ stars (rounded up because I listened to the audiobook which is brilliantly narrated by Robin Miles)
“The difference between her and them was as stark as the gulf between those who’d escaped a catastrophe unscathed and others who’d been forever mutilated by it.”
This was such a wonderful and poignant collection of short stories.
In a interview on LitHub Edwige Danticat said that one of the reasons why she loves the short story form is that it allows her “to magnify smaller moments and to linger on these small epiphanies in the smaller interactions that mean so much”, and indeed each one of her stories seems to prolong a particular moment in her characters' lives.
Given the brevity of her stories Danticat doesn't wast any words. And yet, while her writing could be described as both economic and simple, her prose also demonstrated a richness of expression that resonated with the feelings and scenarios experienced by her characters.
Through the wide range of her narratives Danticat examines similar themes in very different ways. Within her stories Danticat navigates the way in which bonds are tested, broken, or strengthened in times of crisis. Most of Danticat's narratives are concerned in particular with the diasporic experiences of Haitians in America, and she emphasises the feelings of longing, loneliness, and displacement experienced by those who are forced to adapt to a new country and a different culture with poignancy and clarity. They are never reduced to the status of 'outsider', and while their shared heritage does mean that they may have had similar experiences, each one of them has a distinctive voice and a particular relationships with the countries they currently inhabit.
With seeming ease Danticat imbues her characters with their own history and personalities, so that within a few pages we would feel as if we'd know them personally, so much so that to define them as characters seems almost an injustice.
Within these narratives the ordinary moments that make up everyday life can carry both enlightening and tragic overtones. These stories centre on the characters' anxieties, hopes, and fears they may harbour for themselves or their loved ones.
In “Dosas” Elsie, a nurse’s assistant, is betrayed by her husband and her own best friend. Months later her now ex-husband calls her and begs her to help pay the ransom for his kidnapped girlfriend, who happens to be Elsie's former friend. His increasingly desperate calls threaten to disrupt the course of her life.
In “The Port-au-Prince Marriage Special” a woman who has returned to Haiti to run a hotel with her husband is confronted with her own privilege when her young nanny is diagnosed with AIDS; the woman has to reconcile herself with her own misjudgement regarding her nanny's mother and with her preference for a white doctor over a local one.
In “Hot-Air Balloons” we observe the bond between two young women, one of which has started to work for Leve a women's organisation in which she witnesses the most brutal aspects of humanity. Still, even when we are presented with these stark accounts of abuse or suffering the story maintains a sense of hope in the genuine relationship between these two women.
Another story that examines the bond between two women is “Seven Stories”. After publishing a short story a writer is contacted by her childhood friend Callie, the daughter of the prime minister of an unnamed island. After her father's assassination Callie was forced to flee from the island and years later our narrator is invited by her friend who has by now married the island’s new prime minister.
“I didn’t have to think too much about this. I already knew. I am the girl—the woman—who is always going to be looking for stability, a safe harbor. I am never going to forget that I can easily lose everything I have, including my life, in one instant. But this is not what I told her. I told her that I was going to be the kind of friend she could always count on.”
The characters in Danticat's stories are often confronted with impossible choices. Within their realities they are forced to contend against betrayal, illnesses, the devastating earthquake of 2010, medical malpractice, kidnappings, and the risks that come with being 'undocumented'. They are made vulnerable by their status or haunted by the knowledge that the world can be a terrible place. Still, while there were many moments of unease, the stories always maintain a vibrancy that made them hard to put down. Her characters demonstrated empathy, love, and compassion so that her stories never felt bleak or hopeless.
I can't recommend this collection enough. These stories were both upsetting and moving, and within each narrative we follow how a certain 'change' forces each character to reassess their own existence. The crisis they experience are depicted with subtlety and consideration. Danticat interrogates serious themes (identity, mortality, grief) whilst focusing on ordinary moments. Phone conversations and dinners become the backdrop for larger debates. Her narratives illuminate the complexities faced by those who are born, or raised, in a country that is now in crisis.
A heart-rendering collection< of stories that provided me with a lot food for thought and which I will be definitely reading again.
2nd reading:
I have now read it again and I found as compelling as the first time. This may be the first collection of short stories I've ever re-read and it surprised by how many details had stayed with me from the first reading.
February 8, 2023
Stellar. This is exactly what I'm looking for in a collection of short stories. Poignant, compelling, slice-of-life stories woven around similar themes/motifs without being repetitive.
If I were to distill this collection down to one idea it would be 'longing.' The yearning for something else—whether that's a lost loved one's impossible return or a new homeland. Through this Danticat brings together stories of deceptions, misunderstandings, severed ties, and the human capacity to persist in the face of loss.
My favorite stories were "In the Old Days," "The Gift," "Hot-Air Balloons," and "Sunrise, Sunset" - but truly ALL of these stories are great examples of what a short story can do: put you inside of another character's experience for a brief moment to see the world in a new way. They have enough resolution in the end to make a satisfying read without tying up everything nicely that you have nothing to ponder.
This is a masterwork in crafting not just great short stories but a cohesive collection where the stories build on one another in a satisfying way while avoiding redundancy. Can't recommend enough!
If I were to distill this collection down to one idea it would be 'longing.' The yearning for something else—whether that's a lost loved one's impossible return or a new homeland. Through this Danticat brings together stories of deceptions, misunderstandings, severed ties, and the human capacity to persist in the face of loss.
My favorite stories were "In the Old Days," "The Gift," "Hot-Air Balloons," and "Sunrise, Sunset" - but truly ALL of these stories are great examples of what a short story can do: put you inside of another character's experience for a brief moment to see the world in a new way. They have enough resolution in the end to make a satisfying read without tying up everything nicely that you have nothing to ponder.
This is a masterwork in crafting not just great short stories but a cohesive collection where the stories build on one another in a satisfying way while avoiding redundancy. Can't recommend enough!
December 27, 2025
The most heartbreaking work I've read yet this year- Edwidge Danticat has done it again in making me, the reader, feel as if I just witnessed the lives of the vivid characters that pervade this short-story collection.
Weaving stories set in Brooklyn, Miami and Haiti- Ms. Danticat continues to write about the complexities of Haitian life in the 21st century: full of poverty, forced sex work, and harrowing moments that are nothing next to heartbreaking.
“Dosas" is the story of Elsie and Blaise, having an affair as he waits for news of whether or not his wife and child survived the Haiti Earthquake of 2010, and the scam that comes afterwards.
“In the Old Days" is the story of Nadia, a teacher, invited to Miami by her newly discovered stepmother, so she could pay her father last respects. It is a story about grief between father and daughter, who are both teachers.
“The Port-au Prince Marriage Special" is a horrifying and heartbreaking story of Melisande, diagnosed with AIDS and given placebos by a quack Canadian doctor.
“The Gift" is about Anika, having an affair with Thomas, a man with a prosthetic leg, also waiting for the news whether his wife and daughter survived the Haitian earthquake. She sketches a portrait of his family to him as a gift- realizing that she doesn't want to be alone.
“Without Inspection" is a masterpiece of love and grief. As Ernesto Hernandez falls to his death from a building, his life flashes before his eyes and all he could think about is the love he has for his family: Paris and Darlene.
It is one of the best short stories I have read, and have read it over a few times. I am breathless and filled with a sense of melancholy that lingers every time I read it.
Weaving stories set in Brooklyn, Miami and Haiti- Ms. Danticat continues to write about the complexities of Haitian life in the 21st century: full of poverty, forced sex work, and harrowing moments that are nothing next to heartbreaking.
“Dosas" is the story of Elsie and Blaise, having an affair as he waits for news of whether or not his wife and child survived the Haiti Earthquake of 2010, and the scam that comes afterwards.
“In the Old Days" is the story of Nadia, a teacher, invited to Miami by her newly discovered stepmother, so she could pay her father last respects. It is a story about grief between father and daughter, who are both teachers.
“The Port-au Prince Marriage Special" is a horrifying and heartbreaking story of Melisande, diagnosed with AIDS and given placebos by a quack Canadian doctor.
“The Gift" is about Anika, having an affair with Thomas, a man with a prosthetic leg, also waiting for the news whether his wife and daughter survived the Haitian earthquake. She sketches a portrait of his family to him as a gift- realizing that she doesn't want to be alone.
“Without Inspection" is a masterpiece of love and grief. As Ernesto Hernandez falls to his death from a building, his life flashes before his eyes and all he could think about is the love he has for his family: Paris and Darlene.
It is one of the best short stories I have read, and have read it over a few times. I am breathless and filled with a sense of melancholy that lingers every time I read it.
March 1, 2022
[3.5] I like Danticat's writing and was fully engaged while reading each of these well-crafted stories. However, I finished the collection several days ago and they have already faded from my mind.
October 28, 2019
Updated October 2019
Everything Inside is the BookOfCinz Book Club pick for October and the first short stories collection we have ever read. In re-reading this collection I feel in love with all the characters and their stories- definitely a must read!
August 2019
Everything Inside is a strong collection of stories filled with complex characters, all dealing with major issues, trying to navigate life with Haiti being sometimes at the center of the narrative. I am such a fan of Danticat's writing, and I found myself being immersed in this collection and the lives of the people represented on the pages.
With eight stories in the collection, it is hard to zone in on one that truly floored me, because every single one of these stories I rated either 4 or 5. Danticat knows Haiti and I know when I pick up her book, I will be longing for a place I have never visited. The stories explore immigration, family life, relationships, poverty, courage and shame. These stories are explored in a such a real way and vulnerable way.
I particularly liked Dosas, The Port-Au-Prince Marriage Special, The Gift and Seven Stories These stories really moved me because of the topics explored and how complex the characters were. From the young privilege Haitian who wants move to Haiti and help change the country, to the mistress trying to rekindle her affair with her lover who lost his child and wife to the earthquake.... Truly an amazing collection of stories that will stick with you.
Thanks Knopf for this ARC.
Everything Inside is the BookOfCinz Book Club pick for October and the first short stories collection we have ever read. In re-reading this collection I feel in love with all the characters and their stories- definitely a must read!
August 2019
Everything Inside is a strong collection of stories filled with complex characters, all dealing with major issues, trying to navigate life with Haiti being sometimes at the center of the narrative. I am such a fan of Danticat's writing, and I found myself being immersed in this collection and the lives of the people represented on the pages.
With eight stories in the collection, it is hard to zone in on one that truly floored me, because every single one of these stories I rated either 4 or 5. Danticat knows Haiti and I know when I pick up her book, I will be longing for a place I have never visited. The stories explore immigration, family life, relationships, poverty, courage and shame. These stories are explored in a such a real way and vulnerable way.
I particularly liked Dosas, The Port-Au-Prince Marriage Special, The Gift and Seven Stories These stories really moved me because of the topics explored and how complex the characters were. From the young privilege Haitian who wants move to Haiti and help change the country, to the mistress trying to rekindle her affair with her lover who lost his child and wife to the earthquake.... Truly an amazing collection of stories that will stick with you.
Thanks Knopf for this ARC.
March 17, 2019
I pick up an Edwidge Danticat book to dive deeply into quiet, painful emotions endured bravely and this latest collection delivers on that expectation marvelously. Loss and reconciliation haunt every page, and while not as gut-wrenching as, say, her memoir Brother, I'm Dying, the eight stories presented here all leave you wounded in the best possible way.
Danticat's true genius is in the way she hold back information without it feeling like a gimmick. This technique is at its best in what is perhaps my favorite story in the whole collection, "The Gift," which recounts the tale of two former lovers reuniting in the wake of the tragic Haitian earthquake. I won't spoil it for you, but suffice it to say that the stakes shift dramatically throughout. The rest of the stories do a version of this as well. We meet ghosts and travel to unnamed islands seeped in personal and national tragedy; parents and children do their timeless dance of support and neglect; death plays a large role. In each instance, the core of the experience is buried, only to be elegantly unfolded after Danticat has acclimated the reader to the quotidian circumstances present in each story. It's in this way that with Everything Inside Danticat seems to be arguing that the most important moments aren't the marquee ones—the ones that we'll recount for years to come. Real life happens around those moments, and it's these quieter moments that we—and the characters throughout this collection—have to learn to inhabit and endure.
Still, some of the stories seemed to keep their distance, which made it difficult for me to fully connect. At times, I wanted to see a little more vulnerability from the various protagonists and a little less stoicism in the face of unimaginable tragedy. A lot of these stories occupy the space of a recent tragedy, and that's always going to be a tough spot to write about. I'd liked to revisit these characters a few years down the line to see what they've learned in the interim and how they've changed. Overall, though, I greatly enjoyed this collection and can't wait to recommend it to all my friends.
If you liked this, make sure to follow me on Goodreads for more reviews!
Danticat's true genius is in the way she hold back information without it feeling like a gimmick. This technique is at its best in what is perhaps my favorite story in the whole collection, "The Gift," which recounts the tale of two former lovers reuniting in the wake of the tragic Haitian earthquake. I won't spoil it for you, but suffice it to say that the stakes shift dramatically throughout. The rest of the stories do a version of this as well. We meet ghosts and travel to unnamed islands seeped in personal and national tragedy; parents and children do their timeless dance of support and neglect; death plays a large role. In each instance, the core of the experience is buried, only to be elegantly unfolded after Danticat has acclimated the reader to the quotidian circumstances present in each story. It's in this way that with Everything Inside Danticat seems to be arguing that the most important moments aren't the marquee ones—the ones that we'll recount for years to come. Real life happens around those moments, and it's these quieter moments that we—and the characters throughout this collection—have to learn to inhabit and endure.
Still, some of the stories seemed to keep their distance, which made it difficult for me to fully connect. At times, I wanted to see a little more vulnerability from the various protagonists and a little less stoicism in the face of unimaginable tragedy. A lot of these stories occupy the space of a recent tragedy, and that's always going to be a tough spot to write about. I'd liked to revisit these characters a few years down the line to see what they've learned in the interim and how they've changed. Overall, though, I greatly enjoyed this collection and can't wait to recommend it to all my friends.
If you liked this, make sure to follow me on Goodreads for more reviews!
June 7, 2020
This book compels me to give it five stars. I enjoyed every single story in the collection. Every story is different, but each of them was impossible to put down, once I had started reading it. Whether sad, happy, funny, or tragic, there is one thing that seemed to me to be present in every story: hope.
March 17, 2021
This short story collection is fabulous! I love the writing, and even though this is a short story collection, I felt like I really got to know the characters well enough - nothing felt too short or too open-ended. You can really tell how great a writer is based on how they write a short story, and Edwidge Danticat definitely can write!
My favourite two stories in this collection are Sunrise, Sunset (about a woman dealing Alzheimer’s and not accepting it), and the final story, Without Inspection (a man’s life flashing before his eyes as he falls to his death). These two stories really resonated with me, and I just connected to them on such a personal level, I just had all the feelings when reading these two especially.
A major theme in each story I noticed (yes - I actually noticed something!) was death, either literal or figuratively. But it’s not as depressing as that might sound. Sure, it’s sad, but it’s much more than that, I don’t really know how to explain it.
If you’ve read this far in my review, I guess I don’t need to tell you that this is a great book, and a must-read? Reese’s book club picks are either major misses or major hits for me, and this one is a HUGE hit!
My favourite two stories in this collection are Sunrise, Sunset (about a woman dealing Alzheimer’s and not accepting it), and the final story, Without Inspection (a man’s life flashing before his eyes as he falls to his death). These two stories really resonated with me, and I just connected to them on such a personal level, I just had all the feelings when reading these two especially.
A major theme in each story I noticed (yes - I actually noticed something!) was death, either literal or figuratively. But it’s not as depressing as that might sound. Sure, it’s sad, but it’s much more than that, I don’t really know how to explain it.
If you’ve read this far in my review, I guess I don’t need to tell you that this is a great book, and a must-read? Reese’s book club picks are either major misses or major hits for me, and this one is a HUGE hit!
September 30, 2019
I've said this and I'll say it again: short story collections are usually hit or miss for me. Although I love the genre, I always end up liking some, none, or most of the stories therein. This collection is an exception to the "some, none, and most" rule, as every single story here is a literary achievement.
I've read just about everything Edwidge Danticat has written, from "Krik? Krak!" to "The Dew Breaker" to "Breathe, Eyes, Memory" and everything in between. "Everything Inside"is a wonderful collection of eight short stories, all featuring characters from the Haitian diaspora living in Miami. Her characters deal with death, love, and loss and their lives are complicated. Each story is well written and thought out, with beautiful language that leaps off the page.
Favorites here include "Dosas," a story of romantic entanglement and betrayal featuring a husband, wife, and a female lover; "In the Old Days," about a woman who meets her dying father for the first time, and "Without Inspection," a harrowing tale that narrates a Haitian emigre's final thoughts as he falls 40 stories from a building to his death.
Five stars. Hands up, way way up.
I've read just about everything Edwidge Danticat has written, from "Krik? Krak!" to "The Dew Breaker" to "Breathe, Eyes, Memory" and everything in between. "Everything Inside"is a wonderful collection of eight short stories, all featuring characters from the Haitian diaspora living in Miami. Her characters deal with death, love, and loss and their lives are complicated. Each story is well written and thought out, with beautiful language that leaps off the page.
Favorites here include "Dosas," a story of romantic entanglement and betrayal featuring a husband, wife, and a female lover; "In the Old Days," about a woman who meets her dying father for the first time, and "Without Inspection," a harrowing tale that narrates a Haitian emigre's final thoughts as he falls 40 stories from a building to his death.
Five stars. Hands up, way way up.
October 18, 2020
Every short story in this collection depicts a different tragedy, struggle and loss. Most of the characters were forgettable. "Sunrise, Sunset" and "Seven Stories" were the only ones I really liked.
September 3, 2019
4.5 - Nearly perfect.
September 1, 2019
I have read all of Danticat's book (most memorable being KRIK KRAK and CLAIRE OF THE SEA LIGHT) and been very moved by all, except this one. It has all the same themes: displacement, love, loss, extreme poverty, betrayal, diaspora, political persecution, all told in her uncluttered, cutting-to-the-bone style.
But....but, the characters didn't move me, didn't get under my skin, as in her other books.
I struggle with giving this acclaimed writer only three stars, instead of the full-force of a five but so be it.
I must take responsibility for my own frame-of-mind. Perhaps I am over-the-top-disgusted with man's inhumanity to man and this was more of the same.
Still, I recommend it. Help change my opinion.
But....but, the characters didn't move me, didn't get under my skin, as in her other books.
I struggle with giving this acclaimed writer only three stars, instead of the full-force of a five but so be it.
I must take responsibility for my own frame-of-mind. Perhaps I am over-the-top-disgusted with man's inhumanity to man and this was more of the same.
Still, I recommend it. Help change my opinion.
October 29, 2021
I'm slowly making my way through What's a Black Critic to Do? and Donna Bailey Nurse's profile on Edwidge Danticat was so illuminating that I added all her work to my read list. I started with Everything Inside because it was short, I saw it around in the GR streets, and its format allowed me to come back to it again and again.
Every story was perfect.
Each story centres its focus on Haiti at the core. They each tease out and investigate narratives around many aspects of Haitian culture, struggle, strife and triumph. It's skilled storytelling. None of it felt over or underdone. Each story was a fully fleshed-out tale that had human mystery and visceral emotions with every page turn. My favourite stories were: In the Old Days, The Port-Au-Prince Marriage Special, Seven Stories & Without Inspection.
Danticat absolutely saved the best short for last. Her final contribution, Without Inspection, was insightful, painful, present, emotionally complex and forever challenging. She didn't come to play around. Layering on nuance, she encourages the reader to feel everything - especially when all we hear/see around us (when Haiti is spoken of) is half-formed takes that don't include their truth or their experience as fighters/survivors of imperialism, continuously paying the price in a million different ways, years and years later.
Danticat is a technician at weaving the intricacies of her culture, the layers upon layers of her homeland, down to the feelings of the beach, the issues with the government, the realities of the people, but also the resiliency of the human spirit to continue to push forward. It feels incredibly current, but also like a walk through history.
Everything is inside these pages. Highly recommend.
Every story was perfect.
Each story centres its focus on Haiti at the core. They each tease out and investigate narratives around many aspects of Haitian culture, struggle, strife and triumph. It's skilled storytelling. None of it felt over or underdone. Each story was a fully fleshed-out tale that had human mystery and visceral emotions with every page turn. My favourite stories were: In the Old Days, The Port-Au-Prince Marriage Special, Seven Stories & Without Inspection.
Danticat absolutely saved the best short for last. Her final contribution, Without Inspection, was insightful, painful, present, emotionally complex and forever challenging. She didn't come to play around. Layering on nuance, she encourages the reader to feel everything - especially when all we hear/see around us (when Haiti is spoken of) is half-formed takes that don't include their truth or their experience as fighters/survivors of imperialism, continuously paying the price in a million different ways, years and years later.
Danticat is a technician at weaving the intricacies of her culture, the layers upon layers of her homeland, down to the feelings of the beach, the issues with the government, the realities of the people, but also the resiliency of the human spirit to continue to push forward. It feels incredibly current, but also like a walk through history.
Everything is inside these pages. Highly recommend.
May 2, 2021
I liked these short stories well enough, but kept thinking of what would have made me like them better.
"Seven Stories" had such an air of menace - I wanted it reworked in a Shirley Jackson style. I could have Callie in a long novel. Her complexity was calling out for more.
And the migrant girl from Belle Glade, whose better off college roomie wanted to help the poor - I wanted a novel of her entire story, as well.
This was my introduction to Danticat, but I will read more.
"Seven Stories" had such an air of menace - I wanted it reworked in a Shirley Jackson style. I could have Callie in a long novel. Her complexity was calling out for more.
And the migrant girl from Belle Glade, whose better off college roomie wanted to help the poor - I wanted a novel of her entire story, as well.
This was my introduction to Danticat, but I will read more.
March 15, 2025
I have been a devotee of Edwidge Danticat since I met her at a workshop for teachers at the Haitian embassy in Washington, DC in the 1990’s. Her writing has power, and grace, and provides deep insight into the experiences of the Haitian Diaspora, as well as into life in Haiti. This is Edwidge Danticat’s first collection of short stories. Seven of the eight stories have been previously published, some in different versions with different titles. Nevertheless, I found this to be a collection in which every single story was strong.
Dosas, the first in the collection, is about Elsie, who works as a health care aide in Florida. This is demanding, underpaid work, the kind of work that is frequently relegated to immigrants. Elsie is contacted by her ex-husband when his girlfriend is kidnapped in Haiti, while visiting family. But such matters are never simple in Haiti. Deception and revenge are at the heart of this story.
In the Old Days on the surface is the story of a father abandoning his wife and new born daughter. The reason that this occurred though may be uniquely Haitian. After the fall of the Duvaliers, some Haitian exiles decided to return to their homeland. They did so to help build a new Haiti. But in some cases, couples split up because one wanted to return and one wanted to stay in the U.S. The twenty-five-year-old daughter of Maurice De Jean is asked to go to Haiti because her father, a man she never met, is dying.
The Port-au-Prince Marriage Special is about the illusions and disillusions of young Haitian women who are promised love and marriage. They often get something else, and in this case, it is deadly. Even modern medical cures may be a deception, and yet (false) hope perseveres.
The Gift , set after in Miami after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, is the story of a meeting between a woman and her married lover, months after their relationship has ended. She was deceived by him, but he has paid a bigger price.
Hot-Air Balloons tells the story of Lucy, a first year college student, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, who have invested all they have in her future. Her roommate Neah is the privileged child of an “esteemed” Trinidadian academic. During the Thanksgiving week break, Neah goes to Haiti, and on her return decides to drop out of college to volunteer full-time for an organization in the Little Haiti neighborhood in Miami. Lucy is “blamed” for Neah abandoning her studies. As Lucy works to get Lcuy back to college, she becomes of her own mixed feelings about Haiti.
Sunrise, Sunset takes place on the day of a baby’s christening. A family is confronted with the growing evidence that the child’s grandmother is displaying signs of serious cognitive decline. Seven Stories – In the longest story of the collection, Kim accepts on invitation to Haiti from the Prime Minister’s wife, a childhood friend in Brooklyn. The final story, Without Inspection, Arnold reviews his life after he arrived, washed up on a Florida beach.
Each story contains an entire world. This is what well-wrought short stories offer readers. What life in the U.S. offers Haitian immigrants, and what it takes away. The hopes of parents for their children, and the challenges of identity their children experience. The hard work and sacrifices Haitian immigrants make and the realization of dreams as well as their theft. The reality of life in Haiti is may be romanticized by exiles, the there are stories that share the reality.
Danticat is a versatile write whose work includes novels, non-fiction, books for children and young adults, as well as articles in respected publications including The New Yorker.
Highly recommended.
I supported an indie bookstore with my purchase of this book at Everybody’s Books in Brattleboro VT on August 27, 2019.
Dosas, the first in the collection, is about Elsie, who works as a health care aide in Florida. This is demanding, underpaid work, the kind of work that is frequently relegated to immigrants. Elsie is contacted by her ex-husband when his girlfriend is kidnapped in Haiti, while visiting family. But such matters are never simple in Haiti. Deception and revenge are at the heart of this story.
In the Old Days on the surface is the story of a father abandoning his wife and new born daughter. The reason that this occurred though may be uniquely Haitian. After the fall of the Duvaliers, some Haitian exiles decided to return to their homeland. They did so to help build a new Haiti. But in some cases, couples split up because one wanted to return and one wanted to stay in the U.S. The twenty-five-year-old daughter of Maurice De Jean is asked to go to Haiti because her father, a man she never met, is dying.
The Port-au-Prince Marriage Special is about the illusions and disillusions of young Haitian women who are promised love and marriage. They often get something else, and in this case, it is deadly. Even modern medical cures may be a deception, and yet (false) hope perseveres.
The Gift , set after in Miami after the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, is the story of a meeting between a woman and her married lover, months after their relationship has ended. She was deceived by him, but he has paid a bigger price.
Hot-Air Balloons tells the story of Lucy, a first year college student, the daughter of Haitian immigrants, who have invested all they have in her future. Her roommate Neah is the privileged child of an “esteemed” Trinidadian academic. During the Thanksgiving week break, Neah goes to Haiti, and on her return decides to drop out of college to volunteer full-time for an organization in the Little Haiti neighborhood in Miami. Lucy is “blamed” for Neah abandoning her studies. As Lucy works to get Lcuy back to college, she becomes of her own mixed feelings about Haiti.
Sunrise, Sunset takes place on the day of a baby’s christening. A family is confronted with the growing evidence that the child’s grandmother is displaying signs of serious cognitive decline. Seven Stories – In the longest story of the collection, Kim accepts on invitation to Haiti from the Prime Minister’s wife, a childhood friend in Brooklyn. The final story, Without Inspection, Arnold reviews his life after he arrived, washed up on a Florida beach.
Each story contains an entire world. This is what well-wrought short stories offer readers. What life in the U.S. offers Haitian immigrants, and what it takes away. The hopes of parents for their children, and the challenges of identity their children experience. The hard work and sacrifices Haitian immigrants make and the realization of dreams as well as their theft. The reality of life in Haiti is may be romanticized by exiles, the there are stories that share the reality.
Danticat is a versatile write whose work includes novels, non-fiction, books for children and young adults, as well as articles in respected publications including The New Yorker.
Highly recommended.
I supported an indie bookstore with my purchase of this book at Everybody’s Books in Brattleboro VT on August 27, 2019.
November 3, 2024
There was nothing particularly wrong with Everything Inside, but nothing particularly right with it either. It was (and still is) hard to put my finger on, but there was just something of Danticat's typical magic missing from this text. In particular, the endings of many of the stories included in this collection seemed to trail off into vague murmurs as opposed to the intrepid conclusions I'm so used to coming from Danticat.
Though it's difficult to identify favorites in a collection that felt so lacking, if pressed, mine within Everything Inside would be: "Hot-Air Balloons" and "Seven Stories"; "The Gift" would get honorable mention, but falls just short of being classified as a favorite.
The stories included in Everything Inside definitely aren't lacking in substance: they tackle themes of betrayal, diaspora, exploitation, sex tourism, generational trauma, Haiti's 2010 earthquake, and the sheer will to live. If anything the title feels quite apropos, due to the fact that the characters the reader encounters in these stories all carry a wound, experience, life lesson, or secret that they are often working diligently to quell. For some unknown reason, though, Danticat wasn't quite able to reach her usual high mark with these stories or their characters. Mediocrity definitely isn't Danticat's strong suit. This is why the mediocrity I overwhelmingly encountered throughout Everything Inside felt so foreign and out of place. This was one of my least favorite works from Danticat. For me, it ranks just above Claire of the Sea Light in that regard.
Noteworthy quotes:
"From her experience working with the weak and the sick, she'd learned that the disease you ignore is the one that kills you, so she tried her best to have everything out in the open." ("Dosas," 12)
"The Tainos believed themselves to have originally been cave people who would turn into stone when touched by sunlight. They knew the risk when they stepped into the light, but they did it anyway in order to create a new world, a world that continues to exist, because we are still here." ("Hot-Air Balloons," 130)
"I lowered my right wrist to the crevice between her breasts and let it rest there for a moment. And briefly, very briefly, my pain and hers embraced." ("Hot-Air Balloons," 130)
"Carole tried so hard to protect her US-born children from these stories that they are now incapable of overcoming any kind of sadness...Her daughter's psyche is so feeble that anything can rattle her. Doesn't she realize that the life she is living is an accident of fortune? Doesn't she know that she is an exception in this world, where it is normal to be unhappy, to be hungry, to work nonstop and earn next to nothing, and to suffer the whims of everything from tyrants to hurricanes and earthquakes?" ("Sunrise, Sunset," 135)
"...she was so lonely and homesick that she kept kissing her babies' faces, as if their cheeks were plots of land in the country she'd left behind." ("Sunrise, Sunset," 143)
Though it's difficult to identify favorites in a collection that felt so lacking, if pressed, mine within Everything Inside would be: "Hot-Air Balloons" and "Seven Stories"; "The Gift" would get honorable mention, but falls just short of being classified as a favorite.
The stories included in Everything Inside definitely aren't lacking in substance: they tackle themes of betrayal, diaspora, exploitation, sex tourism, generational trauma, Haiti's 2010 earthquake, and the sheer will to live. If anything the title feels quite apropos, due to the fact that the characters the reader encounters in these stories all carry a wound, experience, life lesson, or secret that they are often working diligently to quell. For some unknown reason, though, Danticat wasn't quite able to reach her usual high mark with these stories or their characters. Mediocrity definitely isn't Danticat's strong suit. This is why the mediocrity I overwhelmingly encountered throughout Everything Inside felt so foreign and out of place. This was one of my least favorite works from Danticat. For me, it ranks just above Claire of the Sea Light in that regard.
Noteworthy quotes:
"From her experience working with the weak and the sick, she'd learned that the disease you ignore is the one that kills you, so she tried her best to have everything out in the open." ("Dosas," 12)
"The Tainos believed themselves to have originally been cave people who would turn into stone when touched by sunlight. They knew the risk when they stepped into the light, but they did it anyway in order to create a new world, a world that continues to exist, because we are still here." ("Hot-Air Balloons," 130)
"I lowered my right wrist to the crevice between her breasts and let it rest there for a moment. And briefly, very briefly, my pain and hers embraced." ("Hot-Air Balloons," 130)
"Carole tried so hard to protect her US-born children from these stories that they are now incapable of overcoming any kind of sadness...Her daughter's psyche is so feeble that anything can rattle her. Doesn't she realize that the life she is living is an accident of fortune? Doesn't she know that she is an exception in this world, where it is normal to be unhappy, to be hungry, to work nonstop and earn next to nothing, and to suffer the whims of everything from tyrants to hurricanes and earthquakes?" ("Sunrise, Sunset," 135)
"...she was so lonely and homesick that she kept kissing her babies' faces, as if their cheeks were plots of land in the country she'd left behind." ("Sunrise, Sunset," 143)
May 8, 2021
I read Breath, Eyes and Memory several years ago. I somehow let this author fall of my radar. This is a collection of 8 short stories all beautifully written. I had 3 favorites, but loved them all. Danticat has a way with words making you feel like you’re part of the story. She writes about Haitians, boat people, love, grief, political upheaval, poverty, life, death, it’s all here. I highly recommend this collection. I look forward to reading more of her books!
Published 2019
Published 2019
September 16, 2020
This is a beautiful collection of near perfect, if perfect short stories. Contemporary caribbean literature is not a genre that I read, as these stories take place in Haiti and Miami, but I chose to read this book from pure instinct and its cover, knowing that I would connect to the voice and writing of its author. It is not a type of book I would usually read, but it just goes to show that when a book is written with such heartfelt soul and with precision for language and form, miracles happen and that is the miracle of stellar literature. Contemporary short stories have become so odd, obtuse and bizarre in my opinion, that it's nice to see here that there are still melodic, simple, yet enriching writing in the form of short stories. These are stories of love, loss, grief, but most of all human connection explored in all of its aspects and facets. Really, I was thoroughly impressed by these stories and each one is like an art form in itself. I first gave this book four stars because it's not the kind of book I usually read or am drawn to, but within 24 hours I changed it to five, because this book is almost flawless, like a gem that has no imperfections.
July 15, 2020
مناقشة الكتاب باللغة العربية في فيديو قريبا
Around the World Project: Haiti
This is a collection of stories of people with of different backgrounds and with different experiences from Haiti, whether they've lived all their lives there, or immigrated, or have never been there and only know about it from their parents. Haiti been through occupation that left it in the poor state it is in now, and it shows from the author's writing, the hope in these stories is very fleeting.
1- Dosas: is about a failed relationships and nurse struggling with her job and how she deals with betrayal.
2- In the Old Days: is about a girl who loses a father she never knew, and we knew more about the traditions of life and death in Haiti, and the stories of those who immigrated and never went back, and those who did.
We see in a lot of the stories the two faces of Haiti, the one designed for tourists with beaches and museums and the other with poor people and rape victims, and it shows in some of the upcoming stories.
3- The Port-au-Prince Special: An example of Haitian who are used and tossed aside by tourists is the girl in this story, who a man promises to marry her and leaves her with a disease she can't escape.
4- The Gift: a story about cheating, and while this is the biggest topic I don't want to read in fiction, the author excelled in writing about the feeling of loss.
5- Hot-Air Balloons: While this story doesn't mainly take place n Haiti, it's another story about the ugly side of Haiti and immigrants' experiences and everything the have to lose.
6- Sunrise, Sunset: a story about the suffering of motherhood and a painful portrayal of a mother's deteriorating mind due to dementia.
7- Seven Stories: a story of two childhood friends and how they meet again as adults and how the politics of Haiti and neighboring islands has affected their lives.
8- Without Inspection: One of the most painful stories in the collection, about the last moments of a dying illegal immigrant from Haiti and what he sees and thinks of in his last moments.
It's a solid collection with ups and downs, and with a bit of a slow start, but I enjoyed it.
Around the World Project: Haiti
This is a collection of stories of people with of different backgrounds and with different experiences from Haiti, whether they've lived all their lives there, or immigrated, or have never been there and only know about it from their parents. Haiti been through occupation that left it in the poor state it is in now, and it shows from the author's writing, the hope in these stories is very fleeting.
1- Dosas: is about a failed relationships and nurse struggling with her job and how she deals with betrayal.
2- In the Old Days: is about a girl who loses a father she never knew, and we knew more about the traditions of life and death in Haiti, and the stories of those who immigrated and never went back, and those who did.
We see in a lot of the stories the two faces of Haiti, the one designed for tourists with beaches and museums and the other with poor people and rape victims, and it shows in some of the upcoming stories.
3- The Port-au-Prince Special: An example of Haitian who are used and tossed aside by tourists is the girl in this story, who a man promises to marry her and leaves her with a disease she can't escape.
4- The Gift: a story about cheating, and while this is the biggest topic I don't want to read in fiction, the author excelled in writing about the feeling of loss.
5- Hot-Air Balloons: While this story doesn't mainly take place n Haiti, it's another story about the ugly side of Haiti and immigrants' experiences and everything the have to lose.
6- Sunrise, Sunset: a story about the suffering of motherhood and a painful portrayal of a mother's deteriorating mind due to dementia.
7- Seven Stories: a story of two childhood friends and how they meet again as adults and how the politics of Haiti and neighboring islands has affected their lives.
8- Without Inspection: One of the most painful stories in the collection, about the last moments of a dying illegal immigrant from Haiti and what he sees and thinks of in his last moments.
It's a solid collection with ups and downs, and with a bit of a slow start, but I enjoyed it.
May 12, 2020
Each of the eight stories reminds the reader that Haitians have learned how to live through hard travels in life. The stories are snapshots along the road of living. They tell stories that have a powerful sad main fact of life. This factual way of telling each story lets you see the simple acceptance by all the characters. Every story has some island traditions or tale or song or religious twist that helps explain the underlying strength of their love of their homeland.
1 Dosa
A story of the harsh reality of forgone love betrayal.
"From her experience working with the weak and the sick, she'd learned that the disease you ignore is the one that kills you."
This quote is a metaphorical reference to another woman hitting on her husband. It has very timely and literal application to our COVID pandemic (as I write this).
2 In the Old Days
A father never known to his daughter meet the day he dies.
3 The Port-au-Prince Marriage Special
A daughter with AIDS and unscrupulous doctors.
4 The Gift
He never knew the baby they lost to miscarriage after he left. He lost wife and child in an earthquake. They meet for her to give a gift.
Doesn't she realize that the life she is living is an accident of fortune? Doesn't she know that she is an exception in this world, where it is normal to be unhappy, to be hungry, to work nonstop and earn next to nothing, and to suffer the whims of everything from tyrants to hurricanes and earthquakes?
5 Hot-Air Balloons
A week on fall-break in college to a rape-recovery center on Haiti changes life's goals.
6 Sunrise, Sunset
A grandmother works til the end to help keep family together.
7 Seven Stories
Royalty has its perks, but also hidden dangers and loss of real freedom.
8 Without Inspection
He falls off the scaffolding early in the story, and his complicated path of water crossing, lover and gained child flash between the pages.
The even pace of all the stories made for enjoyable reading.
1 Dosa
A story of the harsh reality of forgone love betrayal.
"From her experience working with the weak and the sick, she'd learned that the disease you ignore is the one that kills you."
This quote is a metaphorical reference to another woman hitting on her husband. It has very timely and literal application to our COVID pandemic (as I write this).
2 In the Old Days
A father never known to his daughter meet the day he dies.
3 The Port-au-Prince Marriage Special
A daughter with AIDS and unscrupulous doctors.
4 The Gift
He never knew the baby they lost to miscarriage after he left. He lost wife and child in an earthquake. They meet for her to give a gift.
Doesn't she realize that the life she is living is an accident of fortune? Doesn't she know that she is an exception in this world, where it is normal to be unhappy, to be hungry, to work nonstop and earn next to nothing, and to suffer the whims of everything from tyrants to hurricanes and earthquakes?
5 Hot-Air Balloons
A week on fall-break in college to a rape-recovery center on Haiti changes life's goals.
6 Sunrise, Sunset
A grandmother works til the end to help keep family together.
7 Seven Stories
Royalty has its perks, but also hidden dangers and loss of real freedom.
8 Without Inspection
He falls off the scaffolding early in the story, and his complicated path of water crossing, lover and gained child flash between the pages.
The even pace of all the stories made for enjoyable reading.
November 9, 2020
Danticat is one of those writers the establishment doesn’t seem to know how to place. Apparently a lot of Haitians don’t see her as a Haitian writer because she writes in English and not in French or Creole, and in the American scene she’s often seen, even if not directly labeled, as an ‘immigrant writer.’ When will we stop choosing this OR that and start saying this AND that? She’s an American writer and an immigrant writer and a Haitian writer. She’s a multi-hyphenate queen. And it all serves to make her work that much more interesting and distinctive. I loved this collection, and every story in it was strong, its own complete thing, though they speak to each other. They’re made in that crafted, artful way that makes the short story such an exciting and aesthetically satisfying form to me. I enjoyed the architecture of these stories. And I loved Danticat’s clean, lucid prose style, the strength of her sentences. They tell about love in its varying guises, friendship, home, identity, how much we don’t know but try, and the ways people struggle in close proximity while being worlds apart. It’s intimate and compassionate in an unambiguous no nonsense way. There is plenty of sentiment, these are stories to be felt and pierced by, but it’s not sentimental or romantic. They’re sad but they’re more than that. They have more breadth than that. I’ll definitely read Danticat again.
February 4, 2026
A well written, engaging eight short story collection. The stories are mainly set in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and Miami, USA. The stories are mainly about Haitians and people of Haitian ancestry and their relationship experiences and their search for a better life.
‘Doras’ is about Dede and her relationship to Blaise, her former husband. Blaise started having an affair with Olivia, Dede’s sister.
‘In the Old Days’ is about a daughter who learns that the father she has never seen, is dying.
‘The Gift’ is about an artist, Anita, who had been having an affair with a married man. She learns that the married man’s wife and child died in an earthquake in Haiti.
‘Sunrise, sunset’ is about the relationship between an immigrant mother who is in the early stages of dementia and the daughter, second generation immigrant, who is suffering from postpartum pains.
An interesting book about the life of the Caribbean immigrant.
The book won the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.
‘Doras’ is about Dede and her relationship to Blaise, her former husband. Blaise started having an affair with Olivia, Dede’s sister.
‘In the Old Days’ is about a daughter who learns that the father she has never seen, is dying.
‘The Gift’ is about an artist, Anita, who had been having an affair with a married man. She learns that the married man’s wife and child died in an earthquake in Haiti.
‘Sunrise, sunset’ is about the relationship between an immigrant mother who is in the early stages of dementia and the daughter, second generation immigrant, who is suffering from postpartum pains.
An interesting book about the life of the Caribbean immigrant.
The book won the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction.
August 22, 2020
The writing is beautiful. Several of the stories I really enjoyed, very powerful and would have loved to see them drawn out into their own novel. A few of the stories I didn't care for as much. Overall it's a lovely book, I'm just not a huge fan of short stories.
August 13, 2020
This book of short stories didn’t really interest me at all. I kept reading but they were just kind of boring to me.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,384 reviews