Myriam J.A. Chancy (N. Affonso)

Myriam J.A. Chancy’s Village Weavers captures the origins, intersections, and ruptures of a lifelong friendship between Simone (Sisi) Val and Gertude (Gertie) Alcindor. The novel’s scope is ambitious, as it leaps between 1940s Port-au-Prince, 1970s Santo Domingo, 1960s Paris, and Miami and Phoenix in the early 2000s.

When the two women, now mothers to daughters of their own, return to the island of Hispaniola for vacation, slumbering secrets rise to the surface and the homecoming is anything but easy amid the mix of personal histories, politics, and colourism. The narrative, interspersed with Kreyol, French, and Spanish, captures the many faces and facets of the contrasting borderlands of Haiti and Dominican Republic. The novel also addresses the violent dictatorship of Duvalier, and the familiar, devastating impacts of a forced diaspora.

Sisi’s childhood home is full of girls and women, where she knows “life is lean but they had plenty.” Meanwhile, Gertie grows up with upper-class luxuries, but finds greater connection with the servants of the household than her own family members. There is not only a class divide between the two characters, but Chancy also deftly illustrates how colourism – culturally poignant yet deeply normalized – informs and influences the major events of the novel.

Sisi and Gertie are nuanced and complicated characters. The texture of their friendship is joy-filled, simple but electric, as are many childhood friendships – until a family tragedy not only disrupts, but transforms their relationship. The event is shrouded by class and familial politics beyond their understanding, and though the two girls are poised to re-evaluate their bond, they are pulled apart. What makes Village Weavers spectacular in its sadness is that there are multiple attempts to repair the severed friendship over the course of the protagonists’ lives, yet the might of external influences is beyond their control.

We follow the recurrent splintering between Sisi and Gertie over the decades through vivid and complicated scenes. Unfortunately, there is an uncertainty in the voice of Chancy’s omniscient narrator that does not always hold the heft of this vicissitude; there are, indeed, select moments – particularly the regional poetry recitation competition – where the emotional sincerity is earned, yet too often the writing is hampered by expository dialogue, and the narrative is smothered by strained metaphors. There is little of the linguistic delight that is found in Chancy’s previous work.

The writing is most impressive when she captures the emotional tenor of Sisi and Gertie in their early years. There are remarkable images such as the red droplet of blood on red thread, and the description of the smells as Sisi and her grandmother make dous for Gertie. Unfortunately, two-thirds of the book is set during the two women’s adult years and, although there are insightful revelations, nothing is as striking as those early moments where Chancy’s language is sharpest. There simply are not enough moments between the two friends that the novel claims to centre.

Village Weavers lacks the muscularity and immersive prose of What Storm, What Thunder – Chancy’s previous multi-character novel that revolved around the 2010 earthquake in Haiti – and ultimately misses the mark with its sentimental ending, falling short of its promise as an epic friend-love story of forgiveness.