The tales of one family and their larger-than-many-lives sister, Antoine, weaves together the vibrant, epic story of Guadaloupe and its diaspora. A young woman born in the suburbs of Paris—whose skin color and memories of occasional childhood visits alone connect her to her father’s native Guadeloupe—yearns to understand her lineage and her métis identity. Upon her request, her old aunt Antoine, the eccentric and indomitable family matriarch, unveils the history of the Ezechiel clan, and with it, that of the island over the course of the twentieth century. In a spirited account, punctuated by interludes from other family members, Antoine tells her life story: a childhood spent deep in the countryside; an ill-fated romance between her upper-class mother and farmer father; the splendors and slums of the capital city, Pointe-à-Pitre; the eruption of modernity; the rifts in a deeply hierarchical society under colonial rule—and the reasons she left it all behind. Through the unforgettable story of the Ezechiels, a richly textured account of the Guadeloupean diaspora emerges, spanning decades and crossing the Atlantic. With lush language and vivid storytelling, Estelle-Sarah Bulle's Where Dogs Bark with Their Tails examines the legacies of capitalism and colonialism, the loss of a beloved mother, what it means to be caught between worlds, and how we might reconcile past, present, and future.
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