Review gives Kincaid's book a B-
" shouldn’t be read as purely autobiographical"
"See Now Then, Jamaica Kincaid’s first novel since 2002’s
Mr. Potter,
shouldn’t be read as purely autobiographical. The facts do line up
well: Kincaid’s former husband, Allen Shawn (Wallace Shawn’s brother) is
a composer; they had two children together, a boy and a girl; they
lived in Bennington, Vermont. The novel depicts a crumbling marriage
between Mr. and Mrs. Sweet, a composer and a writer, respectively, who
live with their son and a daughter in a small New England town. But it
isn’t a book about another American divorce.
See Now Then
elevates marriage difficulty to the level of myth and archetype, to
represent a fundamental part of the American story. Unfortunately,
Kincaid focuses so much on the style of the lyric novel that it hinders
the potential emotional impact."
Here we are allowed to read it autobiographically but not as "pure" autobiography!
