Chaos, suffering in the aftermath of Haiti’s quake

But the book fails to deliver. Farmer’s dry prose reads like a report to his board of directors. It never achieves the emotional depth or resonance one might expect from an eyewitness observer. We get glimpses of the awful suffering, such as a 7-year-old boy trapped in the rubble begging his parents for a sip of water before he dies, and dump trucks moving bodies to mass graves around the clock. Farmer tells us that nearly 50 of his friends and colleagues died in the quake yet says little about the emotional impact of that staggering loss.

After the disaster, doctors and nurses from other nations rushed to Haiti and performed heroically under extraordinarily difficult conditions, often working in tents with little equipment or medicine. Surgical teams in one of the largest hospitals had to use a hardware store hacksaw for amputations. Poor sanitation, including drinking water fouled by human waste, led to an outbreak of deadly cholera.

More than a year after the earthquake, hundreds of thousands of Haitians continued to survive in temporary shelters, and women risked being raped if they ventured out after dark.

The author concedes he had little time to turn his attention to writing a book. He credits two editors who helped him, yet the book is disorganized. It ends with nearly 100 pages of essays of uneven quality written by a dozen family members, colleagues, and friends, resulting in an awkward, repetitive narrative. The text is larded with scores of names of Famer’s friends and colleagues, almost as if he were writing a long thank-you note.

To his credit, Farmer hammers home the worthy theme of balancing emergency relief against the critical need for long-term solutions. He recommends working through government and official institutions, rather than continuing to rely almost exclusively on nongovernmental, charitable groups.