[My Brother]

by Jamaica Kincaid

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.

--Library Journal