Massacre River

By the acclaimed Haitian poet and scholar Rene Philoctete, the novel "Massacre River": "a tour de force by an extraordinary writer" (Edwidge Danticat). Nestled along a border, Haitians and Dominicans have lived as one people for generations. But in 1937, when Generalissimo Trujillo--"the Lord of demented death"--orders the slaughter of all "Haitian devils," a monstrous raptor appears in the sky over the little Dominican town of Elias Pina, brooding a nightmare. Desperate to save Adele, the Haitian wife he cherishes, the Dominican Pedro Brito sets out into the dawn--and so begins "Massacre River," a tale unlike any other, where machetes can fly, severed heads demand justice, towns are flooded by "the foaming filth of genocides," the wind thinks it's a radio, and a word can literally cut throats. At the heart of this kaleidoscopic drama is the loving and sensual bond between Pedro and Adele, tenderly evoked in language of astonishing inventiveness by a narrative voice that can turn on a dime, careening through young romance, heartbreak, skin-crawling evil, and Looney Tunes madness to a tumultuous, breathtaking finale worthy of Hieronymus Bosch.Philoctete, Rene is the author of 'Massacre River' with ISBN 9780811217255 and ISBN 0811217256.