My Brother - Softcover

Kincaid, Jamaica

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099275430 ISBN 13: 9780099275435

Publisher: Vintage, 1998

Synopsis

Jamaica Kincaid's brother Devon Drew died of AIDS on January 19, 1996, at the age of thirty-three. The youngest of four children, highly intelligent, well read, and a charming, handsome, and seductive personality, he had also been involved in a murder at the age of four-teen, lived as a Rastafarian, and been a heavy user of drugs. A dreamer who aroused both love and anger, he died painfully and alone in his mother's house. Jamaica Kincaid's poetic, and shockingly frank recounting of her brother's story is also the story of her family on the island of Antigua, a constellation revolving around the powerful, sometimes threatening figure of her mother, and about the difficult truths at the heart of all families.

About this title

Review:

In 1995 Jamaica Kincaid found out that her brother Devon was dying of AIDS in Antigua. Although she hardly knew him--in fact, she had distanced herself from her family after departing the island as a teenager--she soon returned and began visiting him in the hospital. My Brother is a record of this precarious, overdue rapprochement. More to the point, though, it is a rumination on family, grief, language and the almost impenetrable mystery that each person represents to others. Kincaid's prose is as musical and evocative as ever, and given the subject matter, this memoir is often surprisingly funny. When her mother denies ever having made a mistake while raising her children, for example, the author notes: "Even now, years later, I am still surprised by this, because I spend a good part of my day on my knees in apology to my own children."

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. -Renee Graham, "The Boston Sunday Globe"

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. "Rene Graham, The Boston Sunday Globe""

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. Rene Graham, The Boston Sunday Globe

"

"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." --Rene Graham, The Boston Sunday Globe

About this edition

• Publisher: Vintage
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0099275430
• ISBN 13: 9780099275435
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208