Down Among the Dead Men

R.G. Moyles is a professor of English at the University of Alberta and
the co-author of Imperial Dreams and Colonial Realities: British Views
of Canada, 1880–1914.

This book—autobiographical fiction? fictional autobiography?—is
brilliant, evocative, important. Laferriиre has interpreted for us some
of the mystery of his native Haiti, “one of the worst human jungles on
earth.” We gain an understanding of the power of voodoo, of how
Christian religion and primitive beliefs can be melded into an almost
indescribable lifestyle, of the social structures that create a kind of
caste society, of the political tyranny that drove people like
Laferriиre away, and of the peculiar bonds (to the land and its people)
that draw them back.

But there is much more to the book than that. There is on one level, a
personal story—a mother-and-son relationship—that is both poignant
and beautiful. On another level, there is the power of evocation—a
writing style that captivates in its seeming simplicity and at the same
time carries us, by way of its folkloric epigraphs and brilliant
headings, into many imaginative byways. After accompanying him on a trip
not only to Haiti but to a world of dead men, we may state along with
the narrator: “The other world. Is it here or elsewhere? Or is
‘here’ already ‘elsewhere’? That is my investigation.” It is
the investigation, not any conclusions, that is so fascinating and
worthwhile.