Primitive People - Paperback

by Francine Prose (Author)

Fleeing the terrors of her home, a Haitian woman finds that life in America is filled with its own hardships
Simone has gotten used to living in fear. After years of dictatorship, Haiti has sunk into chaos, and death is ever present. But it isn't the corpse she finds on her doorstep that convinces Simone to flee the island of her birth--it's the night she sees her lover with his arm draped around the shoulder of another. Death is one thing, but she cannot tolerate heartbreak.
The assistant to the United States' cultural attaché, Simone is clever enough to get herself a green card. But when she gets to New York, she finds that her smarts cannot guarantee her a job. Accepting a position as a "caregiver" in a wealthy community upstate, Simone finds herself little more than a glorified nanny to a pair of astonishingly spoiled children. But there is a dark side to her humble new life among the WASPs, and this émigré will find that the rich can be more barbaric than she ever knew.

Author Biography

Francine Prose is the author of sixteen novels, including "A Changed Man," winner of the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, and "Blue Angel," a finalist for the National Book Award. Her most recent works of nonfiction include the highly acclaimed "Anne Frank: The Book, the Life, the Afterlife," and the "New York Times" bestseller "Reading Like a Writer." A former president of PEN American Center and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Prose is a highly regarded critic and essayist, and has taught literature and writing for more than twenty years at major universities. She is a distinguished writer in residence at Bard College, and she lives in New York City.