Despite the many other themes present throughout, the novel functions primarily as a rape narrative that describes Mireille’s captivity and her stumbling attempts to put her life back together in the aftermath. Held for thirteen days, she is beaten, tortured, and repeatedly raped. The fairy tale that is simultaneously elaborated and deconstructed is about Mireille Duval Jameson, whose supposedly perfect life is irrevocably altered after she is kidnapped by gunmen.
The novel’s first sentence frames it within the fairytale genre, suggesting an attention to form that will be maintained throughout: “Once upon a time in a far-off land … I was kidnapped by a gang of fearless yet terrified young men with so much impossible hope beating inside their bodies it burned their very skin and strengthened their will right through their bones” (1). She explores the myth of return, the fraught relationship between generations navigating the cultural shifts from homeland to hostland, cross-cultural marriage, and the gaping chasm between the rich and the poor in Haiti. Roxane Gay’s first novel, An Untamed State, contains many of the typical themes found in contemporary literature by Haitian Americans living in the diaspora.
