"Shannon Ravenel book."

In this book the author talks about three of her most personal relationships, with her parents, with her husband, and with a young Haitian boy known as Piti. A teenager when she and her husband, Bill, first met him in 2001, Piti crossed the border into the Dominican Republic to find work. Impressed by his courage, charmed by his smile, the author has over the years come to think of him as a son, even promising to be at his wedding someday. When Piti calls in 2009, her promise is tested. To the author, much admired for her ability to lead readers deep inside her native Dominican culture, "Haiti is like a sister I've never gotten to know." Here she takes us on a journey into experiences that challenge our way of thinking about history and how it can be reimagined when people from two countries, traditional enemies and strangers, become friends. We follow her across the border into Haiti, once the richest of all the French colonies and now teeters on the edge of the abyss, first for the celebration of a wedding and a year later to find Piti's loved ones in the devastation of the earthquake. A strong message is packed inside this story, this time about the nature of poverty and of wealth, of human love and of human frailty, of history and of the way we live now.