Summary

Danticat begins this section by relating her experience of the 2010 Haitian earthquake. After hearing of the earthquake, Danticat worries about her extended family located in Haiti, none of whom she can contact. Watching the footage of the earthquake, Danticat notices the news stations “provided a dramatic arc for the viewers,” showing dying families, but then immediately switching to show the rescue efforts (48). Danticat suspects this is because people want “a resolution that [isn’t] death” (48).

Danticat then begins analyzing Haruki Murakami’s short-story collection After the Quake. She notes that the earthquake is not the central event in the stories; the aftershocks are. These aftershocks are “not just…physical or geographical, but psychological as well” (49). Reflecting on these stories, she says “poems, essays, memoirs, stories, and novels can help fill depth gaps in a way that numbers and statistics can’t” (49).

Danticat then...