Following her extraordinary debut, My Mother’s House—which was compared to Toni Morrison “at the height of her power” (Harper’s Bazaar)—Francesca Momplaisir returns with a novel teetering on the fault line of history, as one family wades through the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated Haiti in 2010.
Genevieve, a single mother, flies from New York to Port-au-Prince with her teenage son, Miles. The trip is meant to be an education for fifteen-year-old Miles—a chance to learn about his family’s roots while coming to terms with his father’s departure—but it’s also an excuse for Genevieve to escape the city, where her life is dominated by her failed marriage and the daily pressures of raising Black children in America. For Genevieve, the journey is also a homecoming of sorts: An opportunity to visit the island she remembers from childhood and reconnect with family. But when the country is rocked by a massive earthquake—decimating the city and putting their lives at risk—their visit becomes a nightmare of survival.
Written before the horrific earthquake that struck Haiti in 2021, The Garden of Broken Things delivers readers beyond the headlines and into the shattered world of one family brought to the brink. Francesca Momplaisir tells a haunting and astonishing story of restoration and disaster, motherhood, and the bonds that carry through generations.
