Jamaica Kincaid: A Literary Companion (review)

Although acclaimed writer Jamaica Kincaid has not published a full-length text since the travel narrative Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya in 2005, and not a piece of fiction since Mr. Potter in 2002, interest in her work has not diminished. Annie John (1985), Lucy (1990), and The Autobiography of My Mother (1996) are considered modern classics and are frequently taught at American universities. One of the newest additions to the growing body of criticism surrounding Kincaid's work is Mary Ellen Snodgrass's insightful Jamaica Kincaid: A Literary Companion, a guide aimed at students, general readers, and teachers, but which is also a useful tool for researchers.

The companion begins with a brief introduction to Kincaid's authorship, followed by a detailed chronology of Kincaid's life and works. This section is especially valuable as it is difficult to find information on Kincaid, who, unlike many other contemporary authors, does not have an official website devoted to her life and work. Snodgrass provides an overview which is relevant and detailed, especially concerning Kincaid's youth and early career. The information supplied in each entry is interesting as well as important to the understanding of Kincaid's work. However, the entries could have been even more useful if they had been placed in a wider context—the book would, perhaps, have benefited from a more extensive general introduction to Kincaid as an author and a philosopher, as a complement to the chronological overview.

The analytical sections of Snodgrass's guide are thematically structured, organized as an A-to-Z guide to Kincaid's work. There are eighty-four entries, which vary in length from one to six pages and combine brief analyses of Kincaid's work with critical commentary and interviews with Kincaid, as well as links to other texts related to Kincaid's work. The entries are quite varied in scope; some focus briefly on Kincaid's full-length texts, others outline the fictional characters' family trees, and the rest—which are the most compelling—explore themes that are central to Kincaid's writing, such as "mothering" and "colonialism." Snodgrass provides a brief introduction to these central themes and the criticism devoted to them, also discussing less familiar topics. The entries on "music" and "abortion," for example, provide an especially creative and enlightening analysis. The range of entries ensures that most readers of Kincaid will discover new aspects of her writing in the refreshing blend of familiar and less familiar aspects of her life and work. In addition, Snodgrass provides cross-references to other related issues as well as suggestions for further reading towards the end of each entry, which both encourages and facilitates the exploration of any theme that the reader finds especially intriguing.

The structure and organization of the analytical sections is the guide's most important contribution to Kincaid scholarship. Other full-length studies of Kincaid's craft have, in contrast, been structured by focus on her novels, where each chapter, or part of a chapter, focuses on and presents a close examination of one text at a time. (The only exception to date is Diane Simmons's award-winning study Jamaica Kincaid from 1994, where half the study is devoted to a few selected central themes and techniques of Kincaid's, and the other half to analyses and close readings of each of her then published full-length texts.) Snodgrass's thematically structured guide thus offers a new and refreshing structure and perspective, one which is especially suitable for approaching Kincaid, as many themes, relationships, and episodes recur conspicuously throughout her oeuvre—and the format of Snodgrass's study enables a quick, yet relatively comprehensive overview of several of these central and recurring themes in Kincaid's writing.

In addition to the advantages of a thematically structured guide, there are, of course, potential drawbacks to an A-to-Z structure. Any critical study will have to grapple with questions of delimitation, but the issue is brought to a head in a thematically structured guide such as this...