A young domestic worker devoted to her prominent urban employers in Les Cayes, Haiti, Clerise progressively renounces the traditional values of her rural background. When she later marries and opens a small business, class conflicts and divided loyalties develop amid the terror of the Duvalier regime, and she is ultimately caught in the escalation of violence. "Clerise of Haiti" is a story of three generations of Haitian women, and covers a thirty year span ending in the late 1970s. The book explores the complexities of life in a provincial town and highlights the socioeconomic and political forces at play in Haiti.