Mouths Don't Speak

"After the 2010 Haiti earthquake kills her parents, a woman returns to Haiti after leaving it as a child, 25 years ago. A powerful and engrossing story, this read cannot be missed."
--Bustle, 35 Most Anticipated Fiction Books of 2018

"A captivating portrait of a woman plagued with worry about family and homeland, this beautifully written novel recalls Toni Morrison's Paradise."
--Library Journal

"Powerful...As Ulysse explores grief, she moves beyond her protagonist to consider the murky motivations and emotions of other characters. This is a harrowing, thoughtful dive into the aftermath of national and personal tragedies filtered through diasporic life."
--Publishers Weekly

"Ulysse punctuates...descriptions of the lush Florestant plantation with insightful observations about strained family dynamics. The ties that bind can also constrict us."
--Booklist

"In Drifting, Ulysse's 2014 story collection, Haitian immigrants struggle through New York City after the 2010 earthquake that destroyed much of their county. In her debut novel, Ulysse revisits that disaster with a clearer and sharper focus. Jacqueline Florestant is mourning her parents, presumed dead after the earthquake, while her ex-Marine husband cares for their young daughter. But the expected losses aren't the most serious, and a trip to freshly-wounded Haiti exposes the way tragedy follows class lines as well as family ones."
--The Millions, Included in the Millions' Most Anticipated Great First-Half 2018 Book Preview

"A beautiful exploration of one woman's quest to salvage a life that's been destroyed by an unforseeable natural disaster."
--Bitch, included in BitchReads: 25 Fiction Books You Must Read in 2018

"Katia D. Ulysse's relentless prose delves into the class divide made blatant in the wake of the earthquake while probing the boundaries of the struggles of being a multinational family in a time of crisis."
--World Literature Today

"A heartbreaking symphony of place, time, [and] relationships."
--Rebel Women Lit (on Medium)

"A phenomenal writer."
--Edwidge Danticat, author of Claire of the Sea Light

"Ulysse is an intense writer, bringing her readers into the emotions of her characters...This a powerful story."
--Me, You, and Books

"With grace and elegance, Katia D. Ulysse explores the implications of privilege and inaction, of inadequacy and otherness, of trauma and emotional isolation, and the pervasive ways that turmoil and loss corrode the lives of the individuals involved. Mouths Don’t Speak is a gem in the way it tackles difficult subjects and questions without answers."
--M.J. Fièvre, author of A Sky the Color of Chaos

No one was prepared for the massive earthquake that struck Haiti in 2010, taking over a quarter-million lives, and leaving millions of others homeless. Three thousand miles away, Jacqueline Florestant mourns the presumed death of her parents, while her husband, a former US Marine and combat veteran, cares for their three-year-old daughter as he fights his own battles with acute PTSD.

Horrified and guilt-ridden, Jacqueline returns to Haiti in search of the proverbial "closure." Unfortunately, the Haiti she left as a child twenty-five years earlier has disappeared. Her quest turns into a tornado of deception, desperation, and more death. So Jacqueline holds tightly to her daughter--the only one who must not die.