Excerpt from Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"Thank you for putting your trust in me," Albert Vincent now boomed into the crowd. The speech was at last winding down nearly a half hour after he'd begun speaking.

Nozias cupped his hands over his mouth as he whispered something in the fabric vendor's ear. It was obvious to Claire that her father had not really come to hear the mayor, but to see the fabric vendor.

Later that same evening, the fabric vendor appeared at the shack near the end of Pied Rose Avenue. Claire was expecting to be sent to a neighbor while the fabric vendor stayed alone with her father, but Nozias had insisted that Claire pat her hair down with an old bristle brush and that she straighten out the creases on the ruffled dress that she'd kept on all day despite the heat and sun.

Standing between Nozias's and Claire's cots in the middle of the shack, the fabric vendor asked Claire to twirl by the light of the kerosene lamp, which was in its usual place on the small table where Claire and Nozias sometimes ate their meals. The walls of the shack were covered with flaking, yellowed copies of < i>La Rosette, the town's newspaper, which had been glued to the wood long ago with manioc paste by Claire's mother. From where she was standing, Claire could see her own stretched-out shadow moving along with the others over the fading words. While twirling for the lady, Claire heard her father say, "I am for correcting children, but I am not for whipping." He looked down at Claire and paused. His voice cracked, and he jabbed his thumb into the middle of his palm as he continued. "I am for keeping her clean, as you can see. She should of course continue with her schooling, be brought as soon as possible to a doctor when she is sick." Still jabbing at his palm, after having now switched palms, he added, "In turn, she would help with some cleaning both at home and at the shop." Only then did Claire realize who this "her" was that they were talking about, and that her father was trying to give her away.

Her legs suddenly felt like lead, and she stopped twirling, and as soon as she stopped, the fabric vendor turned to her father, her fake hair blocking half of her face. Nozias's eyes dropped from the fabric vendor's fancy hairpiece to her pricey open-toed sandals and red toenails.

"Not tonight," the fabric vendor said, as she headed for the narrow doorway.

Nozias seemed stunned, drawing a long breath and letting it out slowly before following the fabric vendor to the door. They thought they were whispering, but Claire could hear them clearly from across the room.

"I'm going away," Nozias said. "Pou chèche lavi, to look for a better life."

"Ohmm." The fabric vendor groaned a warning, like an impossible word, a word she had no idea how to say. "Why would you want your child to be my servant, a restavèk?"

"I know she would never be that with you," Nozias said. "But this is what would happen anyway, with less kind people than you if I die. I don't have any more family here in town."

Nozias put an end to the fabric vendor's questioning by making a joke about the undertaker's mayoral victory and how many meaningless speeches he would be forced to endure if he remained in Ville Rose. This made the fabric vendor's jingly laugh sound as though it were coming out of her nose. The good news, Claire thought, was that her father did not try to give her away every day. Most of the time, he acted as though he would always keep her. During the week, Claire went to the École Ardin, where she received a charity scholarship from the schoolmaster himself, Msye Ardin. And at night, Claire would sit by the kerosene lamp at the small table in the middle of the shack and recite the new words she was learning. Nozias enjoyed the singsong and her hard work and missed it during her holidays from school. The rest of the time, he went out to sea at the crack of dawn and always came back with some cornmeal or eggs, which he'd bartered part of his early-morning catch for. He talked about going to work in construction or the fishing trade in the neighboring Dominican Republic, but he would always make it sound as though it were something he and Claire could do together, not something he'd have to abandon her to do. But as soon as her birthday came, he would begin talking about it again— chèche lavi: going away to make a better life.

Excerpted from Claire of the Sea Light by Edwidge Danticat. Copyright © 2013 by Edwidge Danticat. Excerpted by permission of Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.