Book Review: My Mother's House

Review by Dominic Howarth

I love me an unreliable narrator. Whether it’s the psychosis of Patrick Bateman in Bret Easton Ellis’ ‘American Psycho’ or the simple unreliability of our own perspectives and knowledge, showcased in Kazuo Ishiguro’s ‘Never Let Me Go’, nothing to me spells humanity like the foibles and lies of a narrator.

But what happens when the narrator isn’t a human at all, but a thing? And when that thing is a house?

In Francesca Momplaisir’s novel, My Mother’s House, one of three narrators is La Kay (Haitian for ‘the House), a structure that has seen it’s neighborhood in Queens develop over the years from an Italian enclave to a Haitian community of immigrants, trying to climb the American social ladder as they learn English, get jobs, and struggle through the new hardships that this country presents.

But La Kay sees all, and as we soon find out, not enough. Lucien and Marie-Ange, husband and wife who’ve fled Haiti in the 1980’s, raise their children inside the house, and open their doors to any immigrants need help, whether that’s with the language, with their paperwork, or finding work in the ever growing neighborhood of South Ozone Park.

Then, what leads to La Kay billowing flames and bursting pipes? What brings us to the screaming into the dark winter sky as it tears it’s own self asunder? Lucien cries from the outside, crippled from a stroke, that his girls are in there, for someone to save them.

And yet, his wife died years ago. His daughters have moved away. There is no one in there to save.

Except…

Momplaisir starts with a powder keg that has already exploded. Her intensity keeps your pulse pounding and her gritty narration makes you feel like you’re in a Martin Scorsese film. We peek into the life of Lucien, slowly unravel his vices and his evils, and wonder what was the cause for both and yet, Momplaisir never tells us the answers. Instead, she shows us a portrait of a man deranged, who understands that he ‘is nothing’ and yet will do whatever it takes to get exactly what he wants when he wants it, and maybe that is precisely why he does it. He exploits the people around him for his own superficial gain, his neighborhood on strings and himself a puppeteer, and the women around him are the ones who are the most destroyed by his actions.

The third narrator, Sol, is one of those women. 

The story of her and her mother, and the entire immigrant experience is brutal, pulling no punches as Momplaisir examines how the trek into America can destroy those who make it, whether physically or mentally. Momplaisir pulls no punches as she investigates the female experience, and what some have to do in orde to live in ‘the land of the free’.

Some reviews of the book complain about no character development. While it is hard for me to argue with that, part of the appeal of the book is that these narrators are so close to the fires within, it’s hard for them to pull away, to breathe, and to change…much like in real life. The evil that surrounds them, that is inside of them, engulfs like the flames of the house, and the book doesn’t let us look at what comes after a fire. We’re in the fire the entire time, if not literally, then thematically. And sometimes, so is life.

If You Enjoyed This Book, You’ll Also Enjoy:

The Water Dancer by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Beloved by Toni Morrison

Enjoy with: A deep pinot noir, with heavy tannins that make you thirsty for more.