Synopsis
In See Now Then, the brilliant and evocative new novel from Jamaica Kincaid—her first in ten years—a marriage is revealed in all its joys and agonies. This piercing examination of the manifold ways in which the passing of time operates on the human consciousness unfolds gracefully, and Kincaid inhabits each of her characters—a mother, a father, and their two children, living in a small village in New England—as they move, in their own minds, between the present, the past, and the future: for, as she writes, "the present will be now then and the past is now then and the future will be a now then." Her characters, constrained by the world, despair in their domestic situations. But their minds wander, trying to make linear sense of what is, in fact, nonlinear. See Now Then is Kincaid's attempt to make clear what is unclear, and to make unclear what we assumed was clear: that is, the beginning, the middle, and the end.
Since the publication of her first short-story collection, At the Bottom of the River, which was nominated for a PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, Kincaid has demonstrated a unique talent for seeing beyond and through the surface of things. In See Now Then, she envelops the reader in a world that is both familiar and startling—creating her most emotionally and thematically daring work yet.
In See Now Then, the brilliant and evocative new novel from Jamaica Kincaid—her first in ten years—a marriage is revealed in all its joys and agonies. This piercing examination of the manifold ways in which the passing of time operates on the human consciousness unfolds gracefully, and Kincaid inhabits each of her characters—a mother, a father, and their two children, living in a small village in New England—as they move, in their own minds, between the present, the past, and the future: for, as she writes, "the present will be now then and the past is now then and the future will be a now then." Her characters, constrained by the world, despair in their domestic situations. But their minds wander, trying to make linear sense of what is, in fact, nonlinear. See Now Then is Kincaid's attempt to make clear what is unclear, and to make unclear what we assumed was clear: that is, the beginning, the middle, and the end.
Since the publication of her first short-story collection, At the Bottom of the River, which was nominated for a PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, Kincaid has demonstrated a unique talent for seeing beyond and through the surface of things. In See Now Then, she envelops the reader in a world that is both familiar and startling—creating her most emotionally and thematically daring work yet.
Editorial Reviews
Review
Praise for Jamaica Kincaid
"Ms. Kincaid writes with passion and conviction, and she also writes with a musical sense of language, a poet's understanding of how politics and history, private and public events, overlap and blur." —Michiko Kakutani , The New York Times
"Hers is a voice you have never heard before . . . Exhilarating to read and impossible to forget." —Doris Grumbach, The Washington Post Book World
"Sensuous and funny, by turns compassionate and cruel; her eye is never wrong." —Mary Gordon
"Kincaid continues to write with a unique, compelling voice that cannot be found
anywhere else. Her small books are worth a pile of thicker—and hollower—ones." —Jeffrey Rodgers, San Francisco Chronicle
"Kincaid conscientiously and expertly manipulates language the way a photographer adjusts a camera's lens, bringing her characters into clear focus and accentuating their profiles against their natural backdrop." —Liza Weisstuch, The Boston Sunday Globe
"Cool and fierce . . . The toughness and elegance of Kincaid's writing is all that one could want." —Susana Moore, The Washington Post Book World
"Kincaid's lyricism ascends into the realm of the sublime." —Andrew Roe, San Francisco Chronicle
About the Author
Jamaica Kincaid was born in St. John's, Antigua. Her books include At the Bottom of the River, Annie John, Lucy, The Autobiography of My Mother, My Brother, and Mr. Potter, all published by FSG. She lives with her family in Vermont.
Funmi Tofowomo
--The art of living and impermanence.
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