My Brother
- Book Review,
by Jamaica Kincaid
Amazon.com
Compassion only occasionally lightens the grim tone of Jamaica Kincaid's searing account of her younger brother Devon's 1996 death from AIDS. As in novels such as Annie John, Kincaid is ruthlessly honest about her ambivalence toward the impoverished Caribbean nation from which she fled, her restrictive family, and the culture that imprisoned Devon. That honesty, which includes chilling detachment from her brother's suffering, is sometimes alienating. But art has its own justifications. The bitter clarity of Kincaid's prose and the tangled, undeniably human feelings it lucidly dissects are justification enough.
From Library Journal
Reading novelist Kincaid's prose is like learning all over again why one writes: to sift endlessly, reorder, and distill one's raw, cluttered experience so that what emerges is, quite simply, perfect. Kincaid has written most recently about her mother (The Autobiography of My Mother, LJ 1/96), and indeed is still writing about her mother, though obliquely, in this memoir of her youngest brother, who died at age 33 from AIDS. Kincaid did not know until after his death that he was homosexual; she had not seen him for 20 years before his illness. In gently insistent, incantatory prose, she recounts their forced reunion, the complicated feelings his illness evokes, the pity and anger she feels for a life senselessly squandered, and her coming to love him as he lay dying. Being back in her native Antigua, and especially near her mother, stirs powerful and painful memories, and in the end Kincaid's achievement is most valuable for how she has transformed her grief into a monument to beauty and permanence. A stunning work; for all collections.-?Amy Boaz, "Library Journal"Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Entertainment Weekly
This blunt fusion of memoir and memorial succeeds until the closing pages, when Kincaid's fascination with herself as a writer eclipses the memory of her brother.
The Wall Street Journal, Merle Rubin
Sober and direct, Ms. Kincaid is unsparing whether looking at others or herself.... Ms. Kincaid's memoir makes no attempt to excuse her brother's failings. Nor does she take refuge wallowing in her own grief at his sad fate. Indeed, her unflinching account of his illness is all the more poignant for its utter lack of false emotion.
The New York Times Book Review, Anna Quindlen
Memory feels exactly like My Brother, Jamaica Kincaid's account of the life and death of her brother Devon Drew in their homeland of Antigua. This book will be described as an AIDS memoir, but that is neither its true purpose nor its power. It is a sustained meditation on the grinding wheel of family, with mother always at the hub; on the countries of our past, both real and emotional, which we have fled and in which we have felt like strangers; on death as a devastating injury and dying as an irritating inconvenience.
From AudioFile
Kincaid's memoir to her brother, Devon Drew, who died of AIDS just over a year ago, extends her heartbreaking loss to listeners. She writes and reads it as a lyric poem. There is almost a refrain, repeated after mention of her mother, or her brother's father. Aspects of Devon's life, the family they shared and the sequence of his dying have an elliptical nature, recurring through the narrative. Kincaid's voice has the syncopation of the West Indies. The crisp, staccato sounds have a sharp edge that makes the words penetrate. As she draws a vivid picture of her native Antigua, emphasizing the colors and the light, the grim waste of Devon's life is infused with sadness. Projecting her mother's sinister force, Kincaid both credits and condemns her ceaseless caring for her children. This is a powerful listening experience. R.F.W. (c)AudioFile, Portland, Maine
From Kirkus Reviews
The death of Kincaid's brother from AIDS results in a book that is lyrically beautiful and emotionally forceful, but lacking a deep examination of its many themes. Writing only a year after the death of her brother, Kincaid (The Autobiography of My Mother, 1996, etc.) uses the event to reexplore issues that permeate her novels and other writings: family, race, and migration. My Brother's flowing, stream-of-consciousness prose pulls readers along through the range of psychological changes Kincaid experiences as she grapples with her loss. From birth, Kincaid's brother Devon had been a source of trouble for the family: committing crimes, taking drugs, and being sexually promiscuous. The contrast between what her brother is at the time of his death (an unrepentant and fated man living in their native Antigua) and what Kincaid has become (a famous writer living in the US) paints a poignant tableau of sibling difference. What is most important here is the precariously complex and often emotionally violent relationships within families. At the forefront is the mother, a figure Kincaid finds herself unwillingly forced to wrestle with again as she attempts to care for the brother she left behind years ago. Distance is what pervades this world: distance from family, from one's origins, from understanding (it is not until after Devon dies that Jamaica learns of his homosexuality). The death of Devon and Kincaid's return to Antigua serve as metaphors for her belief that redemption and escape are finally impossible. But these ideas and the range of others Kincaid touches upon remain underdeveloped throughout the book. Kincaid states, ``These are my thoughts on his dying,'' and reveals the book's flaw: My Brother is a tirade of depression and confusion that fails to make sense of the maelstrom. (First printing of 75,000; author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Review
Controlled and fearless perfection. -Carolyn See, The Washington Post
A sustained meditation on the grinding wheel of family, with mother always at the hub; on the countries of our past, both real and emotional, which we have fled and in which we have felt like strangers; on death as a devastating injury and dying as an irritating inconvenience . . . a memoir about death that portrays it as it is, not as we would have it be, as we so often tailor it both in memoir and fiction. -Anna Quindlen, The New York Times Book Review
Visceral and wrenching, this is a memoir of mourning . . . Kincaid's revelations are both intoxicating and redeeming. -Renée Graham, The Boston Sunday Globe
Rene Graham, The Boston Sunday Globe
Visceral and wrenching, this is a memoir of mourning . . . Kincaid's revelations are both intoxicating and redeeming.
Anna Quindlen, The New York Times Book Review
A sustained meditation on the grinding wheel of family, with mother always at the hub; on the countries of our past, both real and emotional, which we have fled and in which we have felt like strangers; on death as a devastating injury and dying as an irritating inconvenience . . . a memoir about death that portrays it as it is, not as we would have it be, as we so often tailor it both in memoir and fiction.
Review
Controlled and fearless perfection. -Carolyn See, The Washington Post
A sustained meditation on the grinding wheel of family, with mother always at the hub; on the countries of our past, both real and emotional, which we have fled and in which we have felt like strangers; on death as a devastating injury and dying as an irritating inconvenience . . . a memoir about death that portrays it as it is, not as we would have it be, as we so often tailor it both in memoir and fiction. -Anna Quindlen, The New York Times Book Review
Visceral and wrenching, this is a memoir of mourning . . . Kincaid's revelations are both intoxicating and redeeming. -Renée Graham, The Boston Sunday Globe
Book Description
Jamaica Kincaid's incantatory, poetic, and often shockingly frank recounting of her brother Devon Drew's life is also the story of her family on the island of Antigua, a constellation centered on the powerful, sometimes threatening figure of the writer's mother. Kincaid's unblinking record of a life that ed too early speaks volumes about the difficult truths at the heart of all families.
About the Author
Jamaica Kincaid's books include At the Bottom of the River, Annie John, A Small Place, Lucy, and The Autobiography of My Mother. She lives in Vermont.
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