The Dew Breaker has been well received as a novel of hope and redemption, but behind that hope is a story or trial and torment by customs and a nation which seemed to turn on itself at every opportunity. Danticat tells not only her own story, but the story of her nation and its people. Haiti is a nation that seems to desire to both forget and retain its memories of the past and the pain it carried with it. For example, in "The Book of The Dead" we hear a story of a young woman who admires her father but was unaware of what he did in his time in prison. This trend of the past being revealed in the end is a recurring theme throughout the stories of the novel, and not just from the somewhat secretive titular character, but from the other characters throughout the stories, such as the aforementioned father and daughter, or from a Brooklyn-based Haitian family who thought that a Dew Breaker[12] was with them inside their church on Christmas Eve. Yet even with all of these negatives coming from the past, the characters, the people of this story never seem to let it truly affect their futures they built for themselves and their families. The Dew Breaker is one of Danticat's older works, but the lesson in both moving forward and remembering the past hold true throughout its pages. “She delivers her most beautiful and arresting prose when describing the most brutal atrocities and their emotional aftermath,” says the Washington Post.[13] Danticat has and is able to take the pain of the people and turn it into a force of knowledge to tell people that often behind a tale of hope is often a tale of trial and escape from a pain that haunts its people to this day.
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