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These cookies ensure basic functionalities and security features of the website, anonymously. Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. It is an intimate portrayal of trauma with a unique voice, both blunt and poetic, and the book manages to be both devastating and hopeful. A torrid look at a politically and economically divided Haiti, An Untamed State presents a mirror image of a woman and country searching for identity after unspeakable trauma.Īn Untamed State is a harrowing story of a violent kidnapping and the aftermath for the victim and the family. The novel examines the staggering divide between privilege and poverty, what happens when that line is crossed and question can you ever be the same after trauma. It’s a penetrating exploration of trauma and its aftermath, and an eye-opening portrait of Haiti, a land of huge wealth disparities and lawlessness.
Gay’s harrowing and brave debut novel is told mainly from the point-of-view of Mireille, the American daughter of a wealthy Haitian, who’s kidnapped in front of her husband and baby while visiting her parents in Port-au-Prince. She is the coeditor of PANK and essays editor for The Rumpus. Her first book, Ayiti, was a collection of poetry and short stories. Roxane Gay’s writing has appeared in Best American Short Stories 2012, Virginia Quarterly Review, NOON, The New York Times Book Review, The Rumpus, Salon, and many others. It is the story of a willful woman attempting to find her way back to the person she once was, and of how redemption is found in the most unexpected of places. As her father’s standoff with the kidnappers stretches out into days, Mireille must endure the torments of a man who resents everything she represents.Īn Untamed State is a novel of wealth in the face of crushing poverty, and of the lawless anger that corrupt governments produce. Held captive by a man who calls himself The Commander, Mireille waits for her father to pay her ransom. The fairy tale ends one day when Mireille is kidnapped in broad daylight by a gang of heavily armed men, in front of her father’s Port-au-Prince estate. The strong-willed youngest daughter of one of Haiti’s richest sons, she has an adoring husband, a precocious infant son, by all appearances a perfect life. Mireille Duval Jameson is living a fairy tale.