L'ange du patriarche by Kettly Mars (review)

In this latest fictional work by one of Haiti's most prominent female authors, that country's Voodoo culture and Christianity clash in a gripping modern-day tale of spiritual warfare. In the fast-moving narrative, we are presented with a family's tortured battle with a seemingly inviolable curse put in place by a malevolent angel. This malediction, due to a sacrifice gone wrong and initiated by one of the family's shortsighted and selfish ancestors, Horacius Melfort, drives the text from beginning to end. With a wide geographical reach, Mars's depiction of the physical and personal wreckage brought on by the curse touches family members both young and old alike living in Haiti, France, and the United States. The text's principal protagonist, Emmanuela, first must evaluate her own insouciance with respect to the risks this curse may have on her and her family, as well as filter through the contemptuous opinions of her lover, Serge, the voodoo counteractions offered by her best friend, Patricia, and the biblically-based guidance espoused by her elderly cousin, Couz, whose destiny as a spiritual servant is central to the text's conclusion. Focusing primarily on the threat of incestuous relations between witting and unwitting victims, Mars paints the consequences of the curse on multiple levels with powerful depictions of encroaching and unavoidable harm. A ticking time bomb of opportunity propels the text forward, ensnaring the novel's characters into its otherworldly wake. Emmanuela's son, Alain, who suffers from nightmares and insomnia, becomes especially vulnerable when Vanika, the daughter fathered in secret by Emmanuela's now deceased husband and Alain's father, André Lenois, sets her sights on Alain as a potential lover. The curse's malevolent hand is also imposed upon twins, Samantha and Beverly Longway, whose grisly death at age 17 is orchestrated by the evil spirits that have been prowling around their home, waiting to inflict "la dette de haine" (269) on their birthday. Indeed, sinister signs of pending demise proliferate in the novel, such as mysterious burnt odors, paintings regularly askew on the walls, and a computer screen taken over by invisible forces. As a counter to the mounting threats of annihilation, Emmanuela undergoes the voodoo act of "le lavé tèt" (91) and seeks refuge and strength from the Bible, reciting portions of psalms 23, 46 and 91, repeatedly referencing them as a call for help to the Archangel Michael as Couz directed: "Quand je marche dans la vallée de l'ombre de la mort, je ne crains aucun mal, car tu es avec moi... Ces mots lui viennent à l'esprit et lui donnent de la force " (150). In the end, Mars completes the narrative as she often has done in other works by offering her readers a bit of shelter from the storm. From a broad lens perspective, her text emphasizes the religious complexities in Haiti which continue to influence many of its citizens. It also points to the highly charged energy with which contemporary Haitian authors portray their country's conflictual and/or complementary spiritual leanings.