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Overview
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. My Brother is a 1997 National Book Award Finalist for Nonfiction.
Synopsis
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.
Anna Quindlen
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 havd fled and in which we have felt like strangers. . . .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. -- The New York TimesBook Review
Editorials
From the Publisher
Controlled and fearless perfection. -Carolyn See, The Washington PostA 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
Anna Quindlen
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 havd fled and in which we have felt like strangers. . . .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. -- The New York TimesBook ReviewLibrary Journal
A successful writer living in Vermont with her husband and two children, Kincaid is called back to her West Indian home on Antigua where her youngest brother, Devon, is dying of AIDS. They never knew each other well because she went to the United States when she was 16 and he was three. During Devon's last year she visits Antigua frequently to help her mother nurse him. Yet her brother is only part of the memoir. Much of the book concerns Kincaid's continued and troubled relationship with her domineering and manipulative mother. Kincaid's flat tone and sharp diction intensifies the words as memories interweave with present happenings, making this compelling listening. -- Nann Blaine Hilyard, Fargo Public Library, North DakotaLibrary Journal
A successful writer living in Vermont with her husband and two children, Kincaid is called back to her West Indian home on Antigua where her youngest brother, Devon, is dying of AIDS. They never knew each other well because she went to the United States when she was 16 and he was three. During Devon's last year she visits Antigua frequently to help her mother nurse him. Yet her brother is only part of the memoir. Much of the book concerns Kincaid's continued and troubled relationship with her domineering and manipulative mother. Kincaid's flat tone and sharp diction intensifies the words as memories interweave with present happenings, making this compelling listening. -- Nann Blaine Hilyard, Fargo Public Library, North DakotaDarryl Pinckney
Kincaid's voice is not folkloric, even if some of her knowledge is peasant-derived. If anything, Kincaid's rhythms and the circularity of her thought patterns in language bring Gertrude Stein to mind. She is an eccentric and altogether impressive descendant. -- The New York Review of BooksRenee Graham
Visceral and wrenching, this is a memoir of mourning . . . Kincaid's revelations are both intoxicating and redeeming. -- The Boston Sunday Globe.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) uses the event to re-explore 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 U.S.) paints a poignant tableaux 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.