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1. What is the crisis Ka Bienaimé is facing at the beginning of The Dew Breaker, and how does the crisis resolve?

Ka has driven from New York to Florida to deliver a statue to a Haitian TV actress when he father goes missing—with the car and the sculpture. Both the hotel manager and a local police officer are sympathetic but not helpful in locating him, but he turns up at the end of the day.

2. What is the sculpture Ka is selling to Gabrielle Fontaneau?

Ka made a three-foot tall mahogany sculpture of her father from what she understood was his time in prison in Haiti: he is bending with his back “arched like the curve of a crescent moon” with downcast eyes ad long fingers (6). Ms. Fontaneau says that the work is both “regal and humble” (11).

3. What is Ka’s father’s objection to the sculpture?

Ka’s father takes her for a drive to the lake where he sunk the sculpture. He tells her that he was not a prisoner, not “prey” (21). Thus the portrait of a dignified and suffering person is not accurate. He tells her “I was never in prison. I was working in the prison” (21).

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