Night Women by Edwidge Danticat

A Fruitful Gathering by Raymond LaFaille

What struck me immediately was the unnamed narrator’s intimate and powerful voice. Her presence on the page feels vivid, all encompassing. She speaks with an aching and fresh lyricism that never tries to beautify her suffering but instead captures it with an honesty so poetic that her trauma can only be expressed in metaphors. Her voice is threaded with pain and exhaustion, but also with a fierce, unwavering love for her son. It’s this blend of tenderness and desperation that gives the story its emotional gravity.

On the surface, the plot is simple. But nothing about the world she describes is simple. The narrator lives in a cramped one-bedroom shack in Haiti with her young son, separated only by a thin sheet as she tucks him into bed before another of her gentleman callers arrives. As the title indicates, she's one of the many Night Women of Haiti that must do whatever is necessary to provide for their family. However, the harsh reality of her life as a prostitute isn’t sensationalized; rather, it’s poetically dramatized, reflecting the lived experiences of many Haitian women in the Afro-Caribbean diaspora. Danticat gives these women visibility, dignity, and a voice. She highlights not only the crushing weight of poverty in Haiti but also the unwavering resilience required of women to survive it, especially when survival demands painful sacrifices. The narrator is constantly navigating this impossible terrain. As a mother, she is trying to shield her son from the harsh reality of her work, but she also knows that she can’t protect him forever. She’s painfully aware that he’s growing older, more perceptive, and that one day he will understand what happens after he falls asleep on the other side of that thin sheet.

This realization adds another layer of heartbreak to the story. She tries desperately to preserve his innocence, whispering stories and soothing him into dreams, hoping sleep will spare him from witnessing her nightly burden. But beneath that hope is the fear of the moment her son’s childhood will collide with her reality. It’s this emotional tension, this push and pull between love and necessity, that makes the narrator feel so achingly real.

What elevates the story even further is the narrator’s poetic imagination. There’s a rhythm and unique cadence to her thoughts; a softness that contrasts sharply with her dire circumstances. Danticat also sprinkles in myth and folklore that add to the elements of magical realism. Lines like, “There is a place in Ville Rose where ghost women ride the crests of waves while brushing the stars out of their hair,” remind us that even in the harshest lives, imagination can be a refuge. These mythic fragments don’t take us out of the story, quite the contrary. They deepen it, revealing how the narrator holds onto beauty wherever she can find it.

Night Women might only be a few pages, but it feels expansive: emotionally, thematically, and lyrically. It’s a testament to Danticat’s ability to take a single voice and turn it into a haunting, unforgettable presence. 

I really need to read more from this author, pronto.