Jamaica Kincaid, News, and Autobiographical Connection

SARATOGA SPRINGS >> Jamaica Kincaid will present “The Writer in Her World,” the annual Frances Steloff Lecture/Reading at Skidmore College, at 8 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 2, in Gannett Auditorium, Palamountain Hall.

Admission is free and open to the public. She will receive an honorary doctorate of letters from Skidmore President Phillip Glotzbach. Following her presentation she will respond to audience questions and participate in a book signing.
Author of a wide range of books, including novels, memoirs and polemical works, Kincaid is perhaps best known for “Annie John,” “Lucy,” “At The Bottom of the River,” “Autobiography of My Mother,” “Mr. Potter” and “A Small Place.”

Her most recent book, “See Now Then,” has stirred considerable controversy, turning as it does on a disastrous marital break-up, which is said to resemble very closely the demise of Kincaid’s own long-time marriage to the son of New Yorker editor William Shawn.

Kincaid is a professor at Harvard University and a long-time visiting writer each July at Skidmore’s New York State Summer Writers Institute.

http://www.skidmorenews.com/?p=6100

Jamaica Kincaid at Skidmore

CREDIT

"Jamaica Kincaid will present “The Writer in Her World,” the annual Frances Steloff Lecture/Reading at Skidmore College Thursday, Oct. 2,  at 8 p.m. in Gannett Auditorium, Palamountain Hall.  Admission is free and open to the public.
She will receive an honorary doctorate of letters from Skidmore President Phillip Glotzbach. Following her presentation she will respond to audience questions and participate in a book signing."

News: Harvard LITfest and Jamaica Kincaid

“I have this view of writing as something I’d die for,” Kincaid, an African and African American studies professor in residence, said during a panel Tuesday helping to kick off the three-day Harvard LitFest. “I want to write in the way prophets want to do something. I never knew people could become rich writing, but I wanted to write and I just did it." ~Jamaica Kincaid

Kincaid Connections

"Earlier this year, I finally met Jamaica Kincaid, my all-time favorite writer from Antigua, when New York Arts’ hosted “The Year of James Baldwin” a 15-month celebration of the author’s essays, plays, and activism. After her panel discussion, I ran up to Ms. Kincaid, hugged her and asked her why she never responded to an email that I sent her years ago detailing the similarities of her life to my mother’s and my strong ambivalence of being at once Antiguan and American, and quite frankly, not feeling like either most of the time. One of the fast friends that I made at the event snapped a pic of Ms. Kincaid and me and emailed it to me. It would be a few days before I opened it up and become deeply saddened by Ms. Kincaid ‘s resemblance to my aunt, who, like my mom, had done her time in America as a nurse and had returned to Antigua to go “rest sheself.” Mama Kincaid’s beautiful brown skin had no cracks, but did exhibit visible folds and creases. I worried. I worried about what would become of Caribbean literature when Kincaid put her pen down for good. I mean, who would write about hating their mothers, colonization, white supremacy, isolation, the wretched effects of unattended loneliness, and human suffering in such a hypnotic and uncomfortable way that overwhelms, comforts, and transforms?"

~ Tonya Garcia

 - See more at: http://madamenoire.com/449534/naomi-jackson-tiphanie-yanique-two-contemporary-caribbean-writers-must-know/#sthash.7GQA730I.dpuf

Kincaid Inspires Reflection

How is Jamaica Kincaid relevant? Consider this Comment by By Terrence J. Roberts, Ph.D.

I attended a lecture last year by noted author Jamaica Kincaid. During the question-and-answer period following the lecture, a young white male raised his hand. “What can I do to help?” Ms. Kincaid looked at him, not without compassion, and was silent for many seconds. “Young man, there is nothing you can do to help.”

There was a collective, almost imperceptible, holding of breath as we audience members braced ourselves for what might follow. “Because,” she said, “what I want is for none of this ever to have happened.” We breathed again, not so much in relief but in resigned acceptance of a shared reality that seemed totally immune to any of our attempts to change it.

Link to full article:

http://wavenewspapers.com/opinion/article_c39cb126-dc88-11e3-b59a-001a4bcf6878.html?TNNoMobile

Should a Movie be Made of Kincaid's Novel "Lucy" ?

LUCY GOES TO HOLLYWOOD

Can a novel ever be made into an excellent film?

Most literary works suffer when being represented as screen plays. The characters change, the plot changes and sometimes even the conclusion is different.

Still discovering that Kincaid's novel, Lucy is being made into a film is exciting.

I can hear the au par Lucy speaking from the pages of Kincaid's novel,

 "Let's just say I work here until Hollywood discovers me." It would be great to say -

LUCY YOU'VE BEEN DISCOVERED!

Oasis Writing Link (TM): Color Wheel: Spinning Wheels Must Go Round

Oasis Writing Link (TM): Color Wheel: Spinning Wheels Must Go Round

Good Reads Review

Reviewer Matt Lived in the Shirley Jackson house as found in the Jamaica Kincaid's,  See Now Then

"So I read "See Then Now" yesterday afternoon. I read it because I enjoy Jamaica's voice. I also read it because it the vast majority of the book takes place in the house I grew up in, the Shirley Jackson house. Jamaica's house was across the street.

I can see how the appearance of folks from the neighborhood might cause some anxiety to those referenced, but there was nothing that struck me as particularly fanciful. Jamaica is a self-centered person and always has been. I think she's aware of this fact and I've always thought this facet of her personality made her more interesting. Jamaica is a storyteller and I appreciate storytellers far more than reporters. This book is obviously her take on things rather than an attempt to depict things as they actually are/were, but I can see things as they were through her eyes. We all see the past modified by time. Recent studies have shown that each time we remember a past event we are in fact remembering the last remembrance of that event rather than the event itself. Our self image as a product of our memory is nothing more than an ongoing game of telephone we play with ourselves. This is the reason that the courts no longer give weight to eye-witness accounts during criminal proceedings. This is why it's irrelevant whether or not this book is a novel or a memoir.

The book was probably not fair to her ex-husband (and children). I guess I think that's okay. We should all probably be nicer to others, particularly our own families. In my future memoir of my hometown I'll probably be kinder to everyone. If Jamaica had done so it would seem false, particularly given the temporal proximity to her divorce and the abandonment/maturing by her babies. I do think it was fair to the village, a place where the volunteer fire department does spend more time washing their trucks than fighting fires and people are occasionally buried in their hunting clothes. Not that that's all there is to the place, but it is part of it."

Interview with Jamaica Kincaid

Does Truth Have a Tone?

Lauren K. Alleyne interviews Jamaica Kincaid
June 17, 2013
"For this interview, Kincaid spoke with me early one morning via Skype (once she’d awakened her son to help her figure out “how it worked”). We only used the audio feature, as she assured me I was missing nothing but the rumpled sight of her drinking coffee in bed. When she learned I was from Trinidad, she confessed to having made up, as a child, a cousin from Trinidad named Jillian—a way to keep up with her friends, who all seemed to have tons of relatives. I offered her use of my cousin of the same name, and so we began our conversation about fiction, non-fiction, history, and what it means to tell the truth."

– Lauren K. Alleyne for Guernica

Follow the link to read the interview:

http://www.guernicamag.com/interviews/does-truth-have-a-tone/

Jamaica Kincaid in Paris - Video

KINCAID IS OFFENDED

Jamaica Kincaid, 2010. (Elisabetta A. Villa/Getty Images)

KINCAID IS OFFENDED BY THOSE WHO READ HER NEW NOVEL AS AUTOBIOGRAPHY! 

Book Review 
 


I'M IMAGINING THE DAISY FLOWER: SHE LOVES ME? SHE LOVES ME NOT?

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL: 

"See Now Then is about the failing marriage between a writer and a composer living in a small New England village. The writer, Mrs. Sweet, is black and from the Caribbean, and her husband, Mr. Sweet, is white and comes from a princely faction of New York “entitled to doormen, no matter what.” The book’s premise appears to be borrowed from Kincaid’s own life: In 2002, her 20-year marriage to the composer Allen Shawn ended in divorce. Kincaid continues to live in the Bennington home they shared."

NOT AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL: 

"Kincaid, however, is offended by the notion that her fiction is autobiographical. “It’s belittling to think that what I’ve done hinges so much on my own life. It’s as if the reality of what I’ve written is hard to take in so that people must ask about my life rather than what I’ve written,” Kincaid said. “The purpose of the novel wasn’t to talk about the intimate details of my life. The biggest character in the book is the thing we call time: What connects you to tomorrow."

Don't Read (only) as Autobiography: A Cautionary Review

Review gives Kincaid's book a B-

  " shouldn’t be read as purely autobiographical"

 by Kevin McFarland March 18, 2013 

A.V. CLUB

"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!

Jamaica Kincaid Answers 10 Questions on YouTube

Jamaica Kincaid: 'I hope the reader won't look for clues to my life in the book...it's about something deeper.'

Time Interview (Time Video)

January 28, 2013.

Belinda Luscombe

Interactive Autobiography (TM) and Jamaica Kincaid: Jamaica Kincaid reads Biography of a Dress (and more) at MIT

Interactive Autobiography (TM) and Jamaica Kincaid: Jamaica Kincaid reads Biography of a Dress (and more) at MIT

Reviewer of Jamaica Kincaid's "See Now Then" Notes External Details Match Up

Time flies, cleverly, in 'See Now Then'

February 24, 2013

Philly.com

Reviewed by Susan Balée (follow link)

"See here, readers: See Now Then, the new novel by Jamaica Kincaid, traces the interior history of a (ticked off) black woman whose heart has been broken by her (once beloved) husband. And although she says otherwise in interviews, it sure looks like Kincaid is the woman and her erstwhile ex-, Allen Shawn (son of famous editor William, brother of actor Wallace), is the heartbreaker.

 All the external details match up: Shawn and Kincaid's life in Bennington, Vt., where he taught musical composition and she composed prose in their house, possibly the house where the horror writer Shirley Jackson once lived, but certainly a haunted place; their daughter and son; his neuroses (Shawn has written a book about anxiety) and short stature, her middle-aged largesse and love of gardening; his ultimately leaving her for a younger woman. Although the main characters in this book are called Mr. and Mrs. Sweet, the Mrs. quotes from her writings and they are recognizably works by Jamaica Kincaid."

It's Not About Me! Interview with JAMAICA KINCAID

 Printers Row Journal Interview Kevin Nance

Interview

(click to read the complete version of the Printers Row Journal interview with Jamaica Kincaid published in the Chicago Tribune)

Author Jamaica Kincaid poses for a portrait in the backyard of her home in Claremont, Calif. on Friday, February 1, 2013. (Patrick T. Fallon, Chicago Tribune)

Q: And so the story of the family, including the decaying marriage at the center of it, is really subordinate to your thoughts about time.

A: Yes. You might be the first interviewer who hasn't started out by saying, "You were married to a composer, you have two children, you live in Vermont, so this must be about you." It's not about me. If I were going to write a book about me, believe me, I would say so.

Reviewer Asserts Sweets are Fictional Stand"-ins

Chicago Tribune Lifestyles Review:

'See Now Then': Jamaica Kincaid's new symphony

In 'See Now Then,' a once-lyrical marriage disintegrates, leaving nothing but cacophony

February 01, 2013|By Alan Cheuse

"The Sweets, fictional stand-ins for Kincaid and her former husband, live in the (real-life) village of North Bennington, Vt., in a house formerly owned by (real-life) eccentric novelist Shirley Jackson and her (real-life) husband, the brilliant literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman. Mr. Sweet is a modernist composer, and Mrs. Sweet, born in the Caribbean, is a housewife, mother and lay philosopher when it comes to the large questions of time and language."

Review Again See Now Then

"Writers make uncomfortable kin." Jamaica Kincaid

 No doubt! Jamaica Kincaid draws attention to that issue in her new novel SEE NOW THEN. Check out the following review where the author's life is directly referred to when reviewing her fictional novel.

JAMAICA KINCAID

Photo by Ann Summa for The New York Times

New York Times Review

February 22, 2013

Home Truths

By FERNANDA EBERSTADT

"Yet Kincaid, it seems, can never breathe easy. “See Now Then,” her first novel in 10 years, examines the hidden fault lines of a happy family that might be seen as an allegorical version of her own. Composed in incantatory prose, a “Mrs. Dalloway”-like loop of multiple viewpoints, including passages quoted or imagined from Kincaid’s other books, the novel examines — in strains hurtling from satire to fairy-tale innocence to raw pain — the faulty nature of perception."

Interactive Autobiography (TM) and Jamaica Kincaid: STUDIO 360 INTERVIEW

Interactive Autobiography (TM) and Jamaica Kincaid: STUDIO 360 INTERVIEW

STUDIO 360 INTERVIEW

Studio 360

Interview

by Kurt Andersen

Jamaica Kincaid on The New Yorker and Lil’ Kim

"Kincaid’s work (Annie John, Lucy, Autobiography of My Mother) has often dealt with her Caribbean upbringing, but her new novel, See Now Then, is set in North Bennington, Vermont, the town where Kincaid has lived for many years. It’s the story of Mrs. Sweet, a mother with two grown children in a marriage that’s gone very sour.
Many particulars of the book — the town, the gardening, the Caribbean upbringing, the unsuccessful composer, the dissolving marriage — resemble Kincaid’s real life, but she insists See Now Then is not autobiographical. “I wasn’t thinking of myself, I was thinking of all sorts of larger things,” she tells Kurt Andersen. Kurt was struck by how the book’s prose is both “poetic, fragrant, and a little other-worldly but also ruthlessly and shockingly unsentimental at times.” Kincaid explains that “it’s possible it’s influenced by where I spent my forming years which is incredibly beautiful, but in which some rather brutal things happened in the world after 1492.”

AUDIO INTERVIEW