The Dew Breaker

The final part is divided into 13 sections and takes place in 1967, three years after Haiti’s National Assembly voted to accept Francois “Papa Doc” Duvalier’s Duvalieriste Constitution, which established Duvalier as president of Haiti for the full of his life. Only the final section, which takes place later, is separate from this timeline.

In these 13 sections the point of view alternates between the dew breaker, the preacher the dew breaker has been sent to kill, and Anne, the preacher’s stepsister (and later the dew breaker’s wife and Ka’s mother).

The story opens with the dew breaker—Ka’s father—waiting to murder a preacher whose antigovernment sermons have attracted the attention of the Duvalier regime through radio broadcasts. The dew breaker waits in his West German sedan near a row of street vendors, in perfect view of the church, “in case the opportunity came to do the job from inside his car without having to get out and soil his shoes” (183).

The preacher’s church (L’Eglise Baptiste des Anges, or the “Baptist Church of the Angels) is in Bel Air, one of the oldest and poorest communities in Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital. Night falls while the dew breaker waits for the preacher’s arrival.