The Dew Breaker: Night Talkers Summary & Analysis

Dany has been walking up a mountain in rural Haiti for two hours and he is in pain. His roommate back in New York, Michel, recently had an operation to remove his appendix; Dany now panics that he might get appendicitis here and die. He is traveling to see his Aunt Estina. It has been a decade since he moved to New York, and 25 years since his parents were killed by government forces. In the period between these events, Estina raised Dany in Port-au-Prince, but she has now moved back to her familial village in the mountains. He wants to surprise her by visiting her there.  

Dany eventually finds a village, where a little girl is sitting with a pestle and mortar. He greets her in Haitian Creole, asking for water. An older girl brings him some, and he drinks eagerly. At this point a large group of children have gathered to watch him. A man (Old Zo) walks by, and Dany accidentally insults him by implying that he is the little girl’s grandfather, when he is actually her father. He says he is on the way to visit his aunt, Estina Estème. Old Zo asks who Dany’s father was, then reveals that he knows about how Dany’s father died in a fire with his wife. Only their son survived. Now, Dany confirms that he is that son.

Old Zo takes Dany to Estina. Dany recognizes her house as they approach. Although Estina is not in, there is a group of men, women, and children there who know Dany and ask if he remembers them. He greets them, and they tell him Estina is on her way. Some of the people complain that he didn’t write to them or send them money from New York. Then Estina appears, being led by two men. Dany had almost forgotten that she was blind. 

Estina takes Dany inside her house so they speak privately. For a number of years, Dany has been paying his childhood friend to come and check on Estina, sending him money to buy anything that Estina needed and asking that he report back to Dany. Now, she asks him if he has been sent back from the U.S. She explains that there are a few boys in the village who have been sent back, some of whom no longer speak Creole. She also explains that when Dany arrived earlier, she was assisting a midwife during a birth.

Dany tells Estina that he came back because he wanted to tell her that he has found the man who killed his parents. At this inopportune moment, Old Zo walks in, and announces that people are going to bring food for them to eat. Many people follow him, bearing dishes. The visitors stay until it is dark, and Estina is tired. She falls asleep straight away, and talks elaborately in her sleep. Dany is a sleep talker as well, and sometimes narrates his dreams aloud.

When Dany wakes up, Estina and Old Zo’s daughter, nicknamed Ti Famn (little woman) have breakfast waiting for him. He has a cold shower in a stream, and wonders if his father washed there when he was alive. Back inside Estina’s house, Dany finds a tattooed teenager there. Estina introduces him as Claude, “one of the boys who was sent back.” Estina says that Claude is learning Creole but doesn’t have anyone with whom he can speak English. Claude explains that he is grateful for Estina taking care of him. Without her, he might be homeless in Port-au-Prince. He said that he spent the first three months in prison in the city “because [he] had no place to go.” Then his mother introduced him to some family members.

Claude comments that it’s “real big” that Dany has come back to see Estina, and that he hasn’t forgotten his family back in Haiti. He laments that he had become totally disconnected from his family members there. Nonetheless, they welcomed him “after what [he] did,” because they knew he was family. He says that he now feels like a “puzzle” which his family members are slowly putting back together. He admits that he would have looked down on the people he lives among now as “backward-ass peasants.” However, now he feels that he has turned his life around after being in prison and deported, and enjoys living in Haiti. 

Dany feels irritated by Claude. When Claude offers to show him around, Dany turns him down. After Claude leaves, Ti Famn takes Dany’s coffee cup and he wonders if she is actually an adult in her 20s, even though she looks about 12 years old. Estina explains that “his people say” that Claude killed his own father. That night, Dany dreams about the conversation he plans to have with Estina about his parents’ death. Dany was 6 years old when his parents were killed. He remembers hearing an explosion at night, then going out to the wooden porch of his house to see his parents’ dead bodies lying on the ground. A man demanded that he stay silent, or else he would shoot Dany too.

In the dream, Dany tells Estina that the man who murdered his parents (Papa) now has a barbershop in New York. He met Papa when he heard that he was renting out a room in his house. When Dany moved into the room, he spent months unable to sleep. He would go to get his haircut in Papa’s barbershop, and Papa would hardly speak to him, only asking in a quiet, gentle voice how much he would like him to cut and offering a shave. One day, when Anne was out of town, Dany climbed up the stairs of the house and into Papa’s bedroom. He watched Papa sleep and imagined strangling or suffocating him to death, or perhaps just asking him: “Why?”

As Dany watched Papa sleep he realized that he didn’t want to kill him, because then he would never get the answer of why Papa killed his parents. Dany suddenly wakes up, and Estina asks him if he was dreaming about his parents, saying that he was “calling their names.” Dany asks if his parents were involved in politics, and Estina replies, “No more than any of us.” She explains that they did nothing wrong and may have been confused with someone else. Dany tries to question her further, but she says that she is too tired to keep talking, and that they can speak again in the morning. However, when Dany wakes up the next day, he realizes that she is dead.  

Ti Famn wails loud enough that everyone in the surrounding area learns of Estina’s death. Dany is crippled by sharp stomach pain. Local women mill around him, commenting on his condition and trying to find ways to help. Old Zo suggests that Estina knew she was about to die and “call[ed]” Dany to come back before she did. They are all talking about him as if he doesn’t speak Creole himself. He wants to wrap his arms around Estina’s body, feeling like he is in a strange dream where everyone can speak except the two of them.

A few days later, Dany helps Old Zo make the funeral arrangements, while Ti Famn and the other women prepare Estina’s body for burial. They dress her in a blue dress Dany sent her from New York, which had remained in its giftwrap, never worn. They cut away pieces of the dress, and tell Estina not to let anyone in the afterlife take the dress from her. As is traditional, Dany is given a few pieces of the dress to carry around with him for the rest of his life.

Dany always found it strange that Haitian funerals were half festive and half mournful, but he loves the part of the ceremony where attendees share memories of the deceased. Many of those in attendance say that Estina helped birth them. Dany thinks of all the things he would say if he spoke, including the fact that he never wanted to leave Estina but that she insisted that he get as far away from his parents’ murderer as possible. Toward the end of the wake, Claude arrives and expresses his condolences. He tries to hug Dany, but Dany shrinks away.

Dany wonders if it’s true that Estina somehow called him back, and if Papa isn’t actually his parents’ killer, but rather just a “phantom” that helped bring him back to Haiti. He asks Ti Famn her real name, feeling that her nickname implies that she is generic. She tells him that her name is Denise Auguste, and that she is 20 years old. Estina’s death has broken the ice between them, making them seem more like “equals.” Dany goes outside and wipes down the mausoleum where Estina will be buried. Other men cleaned it earlier, but Dany wants to make sure it is “spotless.” He sees Claude and apologizes for his behavior earlier, and Claude says he completely understands. 

Although Claude’s outward tattooed appearance is menacing, Dany can’t help but feel that he looks innocent and vulnerable, like a child. He says he has heard that Claude killed his father, then quickly apologizes, saying it isn’t his business. Yet Claude immediately confirms that it’s true. He says he wishes he could tell Dany that it was an accident or done in self-defense. In reality, he was 14 years old and addicted to drugs, while also selling them. His father found his supply and took it; Claude threatened him with a gun, and when his father didn’t give the drugs back, he shot him.

Claude’s voice is neutral, but a tear falls from his eyes. He says that he is “the luckiest fucker alive,” because committing such an awful act so young gave him the chance to turn his life around. He has also received other kinds of luck, such as the fact that he was released from prison in Port-au-Prince after three months because of overcrowding. As Claude keeps talking, Dany observes that he is also a “night talker” someone who speaks their nightmares aloud at night.