Backstitch: A Novel

From a powerful new voice in fiction comes a stunning multigenerational epic, spanning from 1920s Haiti to 1990s New York, centered on the disappearance of a little girl during Brooklyn's J'ouvert celebrations.

“Beautiful and surreal.” —Jacqueline Woodson, author of Red at the Bone

“With Backstitch, Simmonds-Nastili has placed herself solidly on the map as one of the great Haitian-American novelists of our time.” —Chinelo Okparanta, award-winning author of Under the Udala Trees

Brooklyn, 1996. Serenity Marcelin and her six-year-old daughter, Jouvay, have spent the summer reeling from an unexpected, devastating loss. Just when the two of them are beginning to find solace within their new family dynamic, Jouvay vanishes into a crowd over Labor Day weekend and Serenity’s entire world changes in an instant.

In order to understand the events leading to Jouvay’s sudden disappearance, Serenity must unearth the long-buried secrets―and ghosts―of her family’s shocking past.

Told through the eyes of the unforgettable Marcelin women and the people closest to them, Idrissa Simmonds-Nastili's Backstitch embroiders a profound tale of hope and resistance, maneuvering readers from the city of Jérémie during Haiti's years under US occupation to the vibrant streets of New York. A sweeping story of motherhood, sisterhood, resistance, generational trauma, and liberation, this novel charts the lives of the ghosts, secrets, and languages we can’t escape from―even when we try to bury them.