Jamaica Kincaid

I bought this book the second I saw it because I was excited about a new Kincaid novel. Then I went home and looked at reviews and it sunk to the bottom of my TBR to stagnate. But Kincaid's name kept calling to me, and the African American literature challenge for February came around, so I finally picked it up.

I'll admit, I didn't love this book right away. Kincaid uses a run-on style here. Not exactly run-on sentences, but run-on paragraphs, run-on thoughts, everything bleeds into show more everything else just like now bleeds into then and then into now. It took me a little bit to fall into the rhythm of it. But then I found myself repeatedly smiling these smiles of pure joy, not because of anything joyous happening in the book (really, there wasn't much of that0, but just because of the WRITING. This is the story of a specific place and a specific family, but she also deliberately unmoors it over and over again with allusions to Greek myth and to archetypes and to geology and immigration stories. But it is also her story, and anyone who has read ANY of Kincaid's other work will recognize connections here. Mr. Sweet is often unbearable in his self-absorbed ways, but Kincaid basically (but never explicitly) turns him into Zeus, and I'm like, OKAY, he's Zeus, and Zeus is a prick, GOT IT. And it somehow make it easier to bear.

Anyway, this book is about the dissolution of a marriage and it is about racism and classism and archetypes and creative geniuses and small Caribbean islands and recovering from the wounds of childhood and the way our nows are rooted in our thens and our thens rooted in our nows.

I loved, loved it. Five stars. show less

Looking back at my reading these past few months, a lot of the books I've read have dealt with death, illness, or grief, or all three, in some way. Upon reflection, the simple reason for this, even though a few books probably didn't get much thought when selected, is that I'm growing older and these realities are becoming more certain and there's some fear that I need to make sense of, and books have been known to help with that.

So to this book which is my sixth by Kincaid, and it has show more everything I love about her: pure honesty, the beauty of prose, a cadence accomplished by repetition, and a level of awareness of both self and that around self. It's still a tough read. Jamaica Kincaid's younger brother, Devon, died of AIDS and this book is a result of contemplating the grief and pain that loss brought.

Kincaid was already established and acclaimed when she had published this and before her brother died. As a child she had been a brilliant student but had been forced to abandon her studies and immigrate to the U.S.A. and work as an au-pair to help earn money for her family back in Antigua. Her ascension to the echelons of contemporary literature, where she's rightfully placed, resembles the fantastical and miraculous, and given the circumstances she must have endured, it is. So when she has to return home because of her brother's illness the gulf in their situations (Kincaid middle-class, American, accomplished, comfortable with a nice family of her own; Devon poor, fatally ill, suffering and dying, unaccomplished and unknown, without a family of his own and much to show for himself) confronts the circumstances she might have faced had she remained home and all the complicated emotions it brings, as well as the reality of her dying brother.

The complexity of human relationships, of situation, of life in general. Nothing is ever simple and Kincaid herself, nor her dead brother, nor her family, nor anyone for that matter, is simple. To turn all that grief and difficulty into something this beautiful is testament to her gift. show less

This book is both stunning and exceptional. A woman describes the people and events of her very much examined life with a stark absence not just of sentimentality, but as if even the notion of sentimentality did not exist. She depicts only one person she felt love for, a sensual, passionate love, and none with whom a shared understanding of the world creates a bond that supports trust and affection. The very sensuality with which she accepts herself and the colors, smells, and sounds that show more saturate her world make her sympathetic, but do not make me want to fully accept that world as one I could comprehend more than partially. show less

This author is very angry, and I felt chastised! First among various reasons for being a tourist! It should be required reading for anyone vacationing in the Caribbean, where the tourists have plenty and the locals do not. Take for instance, water. Tourists can swim in it, and then bathe in it, and drink as much as they like. But many islands have no water source so the locals have to conserve every last drop. From there, the author delves into how the residents of Antigua came to live show more there—slave ships, and the dire faults in the English empire. It’s a tongue-lashing for sure. show less