Touching Snow (review)

Karina and her siblings suffer regular "beat-ups" from the Daddy, the enormous man their mother had married so that she could live in the suburbs and not in the violent inner city where many other Haitian immigrants have ended up in the 1980s. But the Daddy carries more violence within him than could possibly exist on any street, and after one particularly brutal beating that leaves Karina's sister Enid near death, someone (his own brother, it turns out) turns him in to the authorities, until a pressured Karina tells lies that allow him to come home. The head of a local community center takes an interest in their family, and Karina takes an interest in his daughter, Rachael. As she and Rachael explore their feelings for each other, Karina grows more confident in herself, knowing that she can be strong in ways her mother cannot be; the Daddy's decision to punish her for her love for Rachael is the last decision he ever makes. Karina's narration makes it hard to get a bead on her at first—she's clearly smart and verbally acute, and yet her teachers threaten her with special ed status and she is socially awkward, especially around a popular girl in her class. As her story unfolds, however, it becomes clear that her odd behaviors, including fainting spells as well as chronic underachievement, are a result of the abuse she is suffering daily at home. Her awkwardness resolves itself as well as her sexuality becomes more than a confused feeling for her. Themes are subtle but powerful here; for instance, the director of the community center, in trying so hard to be culturally sensitive to Haitian family dynamics, utterly misses the difference between corporal discipline and dangerous abuse, making such sensitivity seem absurd on its face. Karina's fatal action is made to seem tragically inevitable, not to mention just, given the ineffectiveness of adults, even when they can no longer look the other way.