Annie John
JAMAICA KINCAID
Visit this book's Amazon.com page >>
| Book Description |
| The author of a prize-winning collection of short stories, At the Bottom of the River, presents her first novel, about a girl growing up in Antigua and her ambivalent but inescapable relationship with her mother. Reprint. NYT. |
| Amazon.com Review |
| Jamaica Kincaid beautifully delineates hatred and fear, because she knows they are often a step away from love and obsession. At the start of Annie John, her 10-year-old heroine is engulfed in family happiness and safety. Though Annie loves her father, she is all eyes for her mother. When she is almost 12, however, the idyll ends and she falls into deep disfavor. This inexplicable loss mars both lives, as each grows adept at public falsity and silent betrayal. The pattern is set, and extended: "And now I started a new series of betrayals of people and things I would have sworn only minutes before to die for." In front of Annie's father and the world, "We were politeness and kindness and love and laughter." Alone they are linked in loathing. Annie tries to imagine herself as someone in a book--an orphan or a girl with a wicked stepmother. The trouble is, she finds, those characters' lives always end happily. Luckily for us, though not perhaps for her alter ego, Kincaid is too truthful a writer to provide such a finale. |
| Other Award Winning Books by Jamaica Kincaid |
| Jamaica Kincaid Award Stats |
| Major Prize* Nominations |
3 |
|
| Unique Books Nominated for a Major Prize* |
2 |
|
| Pulitzer Prize Wins |
0 |
|
| Pulitzer Prize Nominations |
0 |
|
| National Book Critics Circle Award Wins |
0 |
|
| National Book Critics Circle Award Nominations |
1 |
The Autobiography of My Mother · |
| National Book Award Wins |
0 |
|
| National Book Award Nominations |
0 |
|
| Man Booker Prize Wins |
0 |
|
| Man Booker Prize Nominations |
0 |
|
| PEN/Faulkner Award Wins |
0 |
|
| PEN/Faulkner Award Nominations |
2 |
At the Bottom of the River · The Autobiography of My Mother · |
|
|
*Major Prize = Pulitzer Prize, National Book Critics Circle Award, National Book Award, Man Booker Prize, and PEN/Faulkner Award
|
BACK
|
75 reviews (1985) (148p)
9 reviews (1983) (96p)
