287 pages
English language
Published March 14, 2013
Claire Limyé Lanmé -- Claire of the Sea Light -- is an enchanting child born into love and tragedy in Ville Rose, Haiti. Claire's mother died in childbirth, and on each of her birthdays Claire is taken by her father, Nozias, to visit her mother's grave. Nozias wonders if he should give away his young daughter to a local shopkeeper, who lost a child of her own, so that Claire can have a better life. But on the night of Claire's seventh birthday, when at last he makes the wrenching decision to do so, she disappears. As Nozias and others look for her, painful secrets, haunting memories, and startling truths are unearthed among the community of men and women whose individual stories connect to Claire, to her parents, and to the town itself.
A chance discovery and unexpected delight. The kind that, I think, is best dived into without much preparation. Expect love and loss; death and birth and more of each; and above all a tender voice with evocative prose. Expect to sit quietly for a while after finishing it.
The audiobook
Commute audiobook. Criteria: 1. simple enough I can follow it while also attending to driving. 2. interesting enough to keep me alert and engaged on a very long drive. (optionally) 3: a great narrator.
1. probably, in principle, except that...
2. ...I wasn't interested enough to pay enough attention to follow along. I missed quite a bit and instead of backing up to figure out what I'd missed I just kept going. I was grateful for the spoilerific reviews to help me fill in missing information. And there was a LOT of missing information. Including some big stuff that had me wondering how I could possibly have missed that.
3. The narrator was fantastic. I loved the Haitian Creole. I could listen to her say Claire's name all day.
The book
I have a gut feeling that this is actually a very good book and I just wasn't …
The audiobook
Commute audiobook. Criteria: 1. simple enough I can follow it while also attending to driving. 2. interesting enough to keep me alert and engaged on a very long drive. (optionally) 3: a great narrator.
1. probably, in principle, except that...
2. ...I wasn't interested enough to pay enough attention to follow along. I missed quite a bit and instead of backing up to figure out what I'd missed I just kept going. I was grateful for the spoilerific reviews to help me fill in missing information. And there was a LOT of missing information. Including some big stuff that had me wondering how I could possibly have missed that.
3. The narrator was fantastic. I loved the Haitian Creole. I could listen to her say Claire's name all day.
The book
I have a gut feeling that this is actually a very good book and I just wasn't able to give it the attention it deserved, and as a result, I didn't enjoy it as much as I probably could have. My rating is not reflective of the book's quality but merely my readerly 'likingness'. That said, I want a great book to demand my attention, and Claire of the Sea Light did not, so I don't think that this would be a 5-star book for me under any circumstances.
I did enjoy the rich, vibrant immersion into Haitian culture, which is ultimately what kept me listening.
Pure poetry.
The book begins and ends on Claire's seventh birthday. In between is a patchwork quilt, stitched together from the stories of Claire's neighbors and their recollections of the events of the previous ten years. So you learn about about the town where they live gradually, as each person adds the layer of his or her own knowledge.
