The Belle Créole

A young man searches for a way to go on living after being cleared of murder charges in Condé’s rich, dramatic tale (after Victoire) set on the Caribbean island of Guadeloupe. Dieudonné, a “timid and awkward” 22-year-old, has just been acquitted after spending 18 months in jail awaiting trial for the murder of Loraine, a wealthy older woman he gardened for and befriended. Dieudonné’s lawyer successfully framed the case in the unjust history of Guadeloupe, pitting a young, disadvantaged descendant of slaves against the corrupt, exploitative daughter of the white plantation class. A series of flashbacks shows there’s more to the story, illuminating Dieudonné’s devotion to her, his need for affection, and the wedge that came between them after he slept with Loraine’s former student, with whom she’d been romantically entwined. Newly freed, Dieudonné dreads “unemployment, loneliness, boredom,” and life without the woman he’d grown obsessed with. He sets out into the city of Port-Mahault, which has been beset by strikes, rolling blackouts, and a “suffocating” heat wave, feeling nothing for the old friends and lovers he encounters and drifting into despair. Condé’s bold, imaginative group portrait of Guadeloupian lives will enthrall readers. (Apr.)