The Dew Breaker

As the title indicates, this part takes us from the end of the Duvalier regime to the present day (at least the present of the novel’s writing). It is narrated in the first person with past tense, as a sort of memoir. The narrator and his mother are hiding under a cot in their house at the start of the story. Jean-Claude (“Baby Doc”) Duvalier and his retinue have left the country with American help very recently, and the country is in turmoil. On a more personal level, the narrator knows that a crowd rampaging nearby is searching for a man named Regulus, the father of the narrator’s best friend Romain. As a low-level thug of the Duvalier regime, Regulus has enjoyed dominating his neighbors but must now flee for his life.

Along with his mother, the narrator lives in close company with a servant girl named Rosie and his cousin Vaval. By the population density, we can tell this story takes place in Port-au-Prince. The most important citizen in the narrator’s neighborhood is Monsieur Christophe, who owns a water pumping station and profits from supplying people with public water. Rioters have opened all of the station’s valves, and the narrator enjoys thinking about Christophe’s resulting losses.