A frightening false alarm inside Aventura Mall on Dec. 23, 2017, became the seed of a new novel by acclaimed Haitian-American author Edwidge Danticat.
"Dèy," Danticat's first novel in nearly a decade, goes on sale Tuesday, Aug. 25, from Knopf. The title comes from the Haitian Kreyòl word for grief and mourning. The hardcover retails for $30.
Danticat was doing last-minute Christmas shopping for her daughter that Saturday in 2017 when she heard a series of loud pops that sounded like gunshots. Aventura police found no evidence of a shooting. Kids tampering with the mall's sound system was one theory Danticat later cited.
But the moment lodged in her body.
"Magnolia's character grew out of that moment in the mall when I thought my life might end dramatically and violently," Danticat wrote on her website.
The novel's protagonist, Magnolia Elie, is a Haitian American real estate agent and mother in Miami who survives a mass shooting, tells no one and tries to resume ordinary life. Within hours she is back at work showing a Brickell condominium. The story spans Haiti, Brooklyn and Miami, touching on gentrification, environmental vulnerability, migration and the uncertainty of Temporary Protected Status.
Danticat, who lived in South Florida for more than two decades before moving to New York to teach at Columbia University, told the Miami Herald the book is "also about saying goodbye to Miami."
She first explored the 2017 experience in an essay called "This Is My Body," published in her 2024 collection "We're Alone" (Graywolf Press). The character of Magnolia began to take shape there.
Miami Herald Haiti and Caribbean correspondent Jacqueline Charles was also inside Aventura Mall during the 2017 scare. Danticat recalled texting Charles that day "because it was news" and receiving a reply: "I'm in the mall, I'm hiding in a closet in a store."
Charles will moderate a discussion with Danticat about "Dèy" at 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29, at Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ, 3010 De Soto Blvd., Coral Gables. The event, organized by Books & Books in partnership with Americans for Immigrant Justice, is sold out, but a waitlist is open on Eventbrite. Tickets were free or $33.64 (with book purchase, fees included). RSVP is required; call Books & Books at 305-442-4408 for details.
Charles said the novel's depiction of Haitian life in Miami is immediately recognizable, pointing to details like the strict Haitian household, the "aunts" who aren't blood relatives and the different ways Haitians refer to Haiti depending on their relationship to the country.
Danticat grew up in Haiti during the Duvalier dictatorship and said the precariousness of that era shaped her psyche. She chose to make Magnolia a real estate agent to explore what home means literally, through physical spaces, and figuratively, through memory and family.
Upcoming
- Tuesday, Aug. 25: "Dèy" goes on sale nationwide.
- Saturday, Aug. 29, 7 p.m.: Danticat in conversation with Jacqueline Charles, Coral Gables Congregational United Church of Christ, 3010 De Soto Blvd., Coral Gables. Sold out; waitlist on Eventbrite.
