SOURCE: "Living, Seeing, Remembering," in Belles Lettres: A Review of Books by Women, Vol. 10, No. 1, Fall, 1994, pp. 36, 38.

In the following positive review of Breath, Eyes, Memory, Mackay praises Danticat for her "extraordinary optimism," "vivid characterization," and "allusive language."

Edwidge Danticat dedicates her powerful first novel [Breath, Eyes, Memory] to "The brave women of Haiti … on this shore and other shores. We have stumbled but we will not fall." Such optimism is extraordinary, given the everyday adversity faced by the women whose stories are interwoven with that of Sophie, the narrator.

Grandmother Ifé, mother Martine, aunt Atie, and daughter Sophie (and later Sophie's daughter, Brigitte) are rooted as firmly in their native Haitian soil as they are bound to one another, despite the ocean, experiences, and years that separate them. The ties to Haiti, the women's certainty of meeting there at the "very end of each of our journeys...