Everything Inside

Everything Inside (2019) is a short story collection by Haitian American author Edwidge Danticat. The eight stories in this collection, which focus primarily on the lives of Haitian people living across the Caribbean, are connected by their interest in loss and the search for identity. Like many of her characters, Danticat immigrated to the United States from Haiti at a young age; her love for Haiti and its history is evident throughout the collection, despite the violence and suffering on which her stories center. The stories in the collection touch upon a wide range of topics, including the trauma of immigration, the legacy of political violence in Haiti, and the search for cultural identity. Each of the eight stories in Everything Inside appeared elsewhere, in journals and magazines such as The Caribbean Writer, The New Yorker, Granta, and The Washington Post Magazine.

This summary is based on the 2019 Knopf edition of the text.

Plot Summary

The protagonist of “Dosas,” the first story in the collection, is a Haitian American nurse’s assistant named Elsie. One day, Elsie’s ex-husband Blaise calls to tell her that his new girlfriend Olivia—who was once Elsie’s best friend—has been kidnapped in Haiti, and that the kidnappers are demanding a ransom of $50,000. Elsie recalls the circumstances that brought them all together, and wonders when Olivia and Blaise began their affair. She eventually wires Blaise $5,000—nearly all of her savings—to help save her ex-friend. Shortly after, Blaise tells her that the kidnappers murdered Olivia after accepting the ransom. Elsie goes to the club where they met to mourn the loss; the club owner tells her that Olivia is alive, and that Blaise and Olivia scammed him for money, too. Elsie gets drunk, and the club owner takes her home, where they have sex.

“In the Old Days” is narrated by Nadia, who receives a call from her father’s wife saying that he is dying and wants to see her. Nadia was raised by her mother, who said that her father abandoned them before she was born. Nadia flies to Miami, but her father’s wife does not immediately take Nadia to see him; instead, she tells Nadia about their life together in Haiti, and about Haitian cultural traditions regarding birth and death. When Nadia eventually sees her father, he is dead. His wife explains that she wanted Nadia to be able to see him before he was declared dead by a doctor. Nadia says goodbye to her father and embraces his wife.

The unnamed narrator of “The Port-au-Prince Marriage Special” runs a hotel in Port-au-Prince, Haiti with her husband Xavier. One day, the couple’s nanny Mélisande tells the narrator that she has been diagnosed with AIDS. The narrator panics, wondering if her son has been infected, then volunteers to help Mélisande access healthcare. Mélisande seems to be improving with a doctor’s care, but when she sees a new doctor, they learn that the first doctor had sold her placebo pills. Mélisande’s spirit and health fade quickly with this news. She shows the narrator a cheap ring, revealing that the man who had given it to her had disappeared.

“The Gift” centers on ex-lovers Anika and Thomas, who meet for dinner in Miami after a separation of seven months. Anika has not seen Thomas, who is married, since his wife and daughter were killed in the catastrophic 2010 earthquake in Haiti. Thomas lost his leg in the earthquake and spent several months in a mental health facility dealing with his trauma. The date is interrupted when the 4th of July fireworks trigger Thomas’s anxiety. The two return to Anika’s apartment, where she gives him the titular gift: a drawing of his dead wife and daughter as birds. Thomas leaves without the gift, and Anika does not reveal that she miscarried their child.

The narrator of “Hot Air Balloons” is a college freshman named Lucy whose roommate, Neah, decides to drop out after a Thanksgiving trip to Haiti. Neah’s father, a professor at their university, asks Lucy to visit Neah at the Haitian nonprofit where she works to try to convince her to return to school. Neah reveals that her time in Haiti was more upsetting than she’d expected, and that school feels meaningless. She tells Lucy about a tattoo she got to commemorate the trip but will not show her. Lucy leaves, wondering if she’ll see Neah again. That night, Neah returns to their shared dorm, revealing that she’s decided to stay in school. When Neah falls asleep, Lucy lifts her shirt to see the tattoo up close.

“Sunrise, Sunset” is told alternately from the perspective of Carole, a Haitian woman with dementia, and her daughter Jeanne, who has post-partum depression. Although both women sense something is wrong, neither truly understands the other’s diagnosis. The story takes place on the day of Jeanne’s son’s christening: Jeanne and her husband, James, are not religious, but know that the ritual is important to Carole. After the ceremony, Carole takes her grandson on an apartment balcony and holds him over the edge, thinking he is a doll. After a few terrifying minutes, Jeanne and James retrieve the baby, and Carole is sent for psychiatric evaluation. Both women acknowledge that their lives will change forever.

“Seven Stories” describes the reunion between childhood friends Kim, a Brooklyn-based writer, and Callie, the wife of the prime minister of an unnamed Caribbean island. Kim and Callie met at age seven, when Callie and her mother fled the island for America after the assassination of Callie’s father, who was prime minister at the time. They are reunited when Kim writes an essay about their time together, and Callie invites her to the island for New Year’s Eve. Callie and her husband expose Kim to the lifestyle of the island’s elite, but Callie also encourages Kim to explore the island more fully. Kim leaves the island with a stronger sense of her friend’s traumatic history and a degree of cynicism about the island’s government.

“Without Inspection,” the final story in the collection, depicts the death of Arnold, a Haitian immigrant who falls 600 feet from construction scaffolding into a cement mixer. As he falls, Arnold thinks about his son, Paris, and his partner, Darline, and the circumstances that brought them together. Arnold was brought to America from Haiti via boat by a captain that eventually abandoned him and 13 others at sea; when he came ashore, Darline hid him from police and took him to a shelter. Darline and Paris came to America in a similar situation, and Paris’s father was lost at sea. As he dies in the cement mixer, Arnold imagines saying goodbye to his family and guiding Darline back to the beach to save more immigrants.