The autobiography of my mother by Jamaica Kincaid

Book set in Roseau, Dominica. Reviewed on 2019/11: https://www.instagram.com/p/B5OKQl2Ab7n/

Another strong choice for my #bestbookofthemonth ! Very much like #marilenefelinto and also #margueriteduras , #jamaicakincaid is mastering one thing in this book: the power and art of simple sentences. These succinct and direct sentences endlessly one after another form one compelling story. #theautobiographyofmymother needs to be taken as a whole, the mighty force of all these details and seemingly simple sentences together. This is a book you need to read almost retrospectively: from the daughter to the mother, from the hurricane to the afternoon rain. #kincaid wrote a visceral and brutal story which doesn’t hide anything at all, and it’s peppered with devastating and insightful observations. “Against ample evidence, against your better judgement, you put your trust in the constancy of things, you place faith in their everydayness. One day you open your door, you step out in the yard, but the ground is not there and you fall into a hole that has no bottom and no sides and no color. The mystery of the hole in the ground gives way to the mystery of your fall; just when you get used to falling and falling forever, you stop; and that stopping is yet another mystery, for why did you stop, there is not an answer to that any more than there is answer to why you fell in the first place. Who you are is a mystery no one can answer, not even you. And why not, why not!”