This ticks a bunch of my boxes: non-linear, multi-POV, central theme. Focusing on the famous Haitian earthquake, the narrative occupies multiple characters at various points before and after the event. Some of them attempt to define what “home” means to them, in the context of being Haitian. Others identity is altered from the event, though they’re on the peripheral. A local who comes to help rebuild creates a meta context for relief efforts and fonds.

All in all, it’s a much more comprehensive result than a single POV, and it ranges in privilege, ethnicity, gender, etc. If you’re going to examine an event like this, this is a great way to do it. It’s compartmentalized. Not sensationalized. Respectful. Seems well researched. It’s a much better structure than, say, having a structure that is only the event unfolding and jumping from character to character to have a sort of disaster movie-esk creation.

It also means that they’re all pretty much short stories, and so vary, as these are want to do. Some I found really interesting and others felt a bit lack lustre. The theme still hits, but it’s in contrast to the stories that really stand out. This is forever my issue with short stories. The nice thing about this one though, is I think it somewhat knows this and so has the through line of the event and overarching themes.

I did listen to it on audio and I found the narrator to be far better than is typical. Some people complained that it’s the same narrator for everyone, so it could be confusing when it changes characters. They’re siloed to each chapter but I suppose it depends how much bandwidth you give your audiobooks. If you pay attention there is no problem. If you’re doing other things, though, I could see how that could happen. Heads up!

The prose felt very natural to the narrator and also above average. Great sense of time and place. Evocative. Active. Good at choosing what is interesting and unique about the locale to communicate to the reader and dispensing with the rest. Worth your time. Even for people who don’t like the short-story-as-novel structure. There’s enough grounding everything together, and no story felt too overlong, even if I wasn’t as into it as another, that it feels like it would appeal to a wide range of readers, imo.