Talk to Me: Lessons from a Family Forged by History

Benjamin (Searching for Whitopia) delivers a devastating memoir about the ripple effects of the coup that ousted his grandfather, Haitian president Daniel Fignolé, in 1957. After 19 days in power, Fignolé was forced at gunpoint to resign, and his wife and children were kidnapped and taken to the U.S., where they lived in exile. One of those children was Benjamin’s mother, Danielle, who grew up to become a mercurial woman who frequently beat Benjamin while assuring him that “when you’ve been to hell and back, nothing can ever destroy you.” As a teenager in the 1980s, Benjamin discovered he was gay and harbored secret fears about HIV and AIDS as he struggled with painful complications from sickle cell anemia. After several failed attempts to get Danielle to open up about her past, Benjamin traveled to Haiti as an adult, where he dug up declassified government documents and pieced together the story of his grandfather’s regime, a process that helped bring the roots of his mother’s rage into focus. This brutal, spellbinding tale is at once a searing domestic drama and an illuminating glimpse at Haiti’s history. Readers will be rapt. Photos. Agent: Markus Hoffman, Regal Hoffman & Assoc. (Feb.)