Edwidge Danticat's first novel in over a decade, "Dèy," follows Magnolia, a Haitian-American woman in Miami, who survives a mass shooting at a shopping mall and subsequently grapples with escalating anxiety and trauma. The novel explores interconnected themes of violence—from the immediate shooting to reports of gang activity in Haiti, global conflicts, and xenophobic political rhetoric targeting Haitian immigrants—alongside questions of displacement and belonging. Through Magnolia's work as a property agent, the narrative examines the gentrification of Miami's Little Haiti, a neighbourhood she is professionally complicit in displacing even as she belongs to the community herself.

The review acknowledges Danticat's evocative portrayals of Miami's Little Haiti, with its bakeries, barbershops and churches, yet criticises the novel's overall execution. Magnolia remains an emotionally distant and passive narrator throughout, whilst peripheral characters—particularly a Haitian security guard killed in the shooting, whose journey across continents seeking work is richly detailed—prove far more vivid and compelling. The prose itself is criticised as oscillating between overly academic language and lifestyle-magazine clichés, failing to adequately capture the weight of the violence and anxiety at the novel's heart. The reviewer suggests the work lacks the power of Danticat's earlier acclaimed novels.