Primitive People

By Francine Prose

Book Overview

What are these barbaric rituals that pass for social and family life? Who are these fearsome creatures who linger in decaying mansions and at glittery malls, trendy weddings and dinner parties? These are the questions that trouble Simone, a beautiful, smart young Haitian woman. She has fled the chaotic violence of Port-au-Prince only to find herself in a world no less brutal or bizarre -- a seemingly civilized landscape where dead sheep swing from trees, lightbulbs are ceremonially buried, fur-clad mothers carve terrifying goddesses out of pumice...and where learning to lie is the principal rite of passage into adulthood. The primitive people of this darkly satiric novel are not, as one might expect, the backward denizens of some savage isle, but the wealthy inhabitants of the Hudson Valley in upstate New York.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374237220
• ISBN13: 9780374237226
• Release Date: January 1
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus & Giroux
• Length: 227 Pages
• Weight: 0.89 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.8" x 8.8"

Customer Reviews

missing the boat?

I mean the other reviews. Wo wo wo wo---this isn't a novel with a "dark" plot or characters that are supposed to be realistic individuals. I admit this is the first book I've read by the author, but what this is is satire, these people are supposed to be caricatures. Even the title tells you that. Rich American WASPs are seen through the eyes of a newly arrived illegal immigrant from Haiti. It's the Americans (in Westchester County, I'm assuming) who are the "primitive" people, and not in the literal sense. It's good satire because the author's point is very true, and she has you laughing while shaking your head at the same time. Here is a divorced father who buys his kids their own life-size jukebox, and explains to the Haitian nanny he has a terrible dilemma, because he never knows what to get the kids for Christmas. The Haitian woman meanwhile thinks that kids from her country would prefer too many choices to no food at all. She's having a lot of trouble understanding the world she's been dropped into, and it is pretty crazy. You'll enjoy this book a lot if you see it for what it really is. In some ways it reminds me of Don DeLillo's White Noise, or William Boyd's books. Another story along these lines is that old movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy. We do live in a crazy environment, and sometimes all you can do is laugh.

The selfish shall inherit the earth

The moral of this dark novel could be formulated as " the selfish shall inherit the earth". An illegal Haitian immigrant is hired by a divorced wife to be a governess - unlike the other characters, mother and governess are both very decent people, although the mother can be neglectful and not as strong a person as the children need. The strength of this novel is in its portrayal of the children, caught in a bad situation. The Haitian angle and the governess' back story add interest, the father is charming and chilling, and the children's barber is a well drawn, interesting secondary character. It took me quite a while to get fully caught up in this book, but it was never dull.