Lucy: A Novel - Kincaid, Jamaica Review & Synopsis

 Synopsis

The coming-of-age story of one of Jamaica Kincaid's most admired creations--newly available in paperback

Lucy, a teenage girl from the West Indies, comes to North America to work as an au pair for Lewis and Mariah and their four children. Lewis and Mariah are a thrice-blessed couple--handsome, rich, and seemingly happy. Yet, alomst at once, Lucy begins to notice cracks in their beautiful facade. With mingled anger and compassion, Lucy scrutinizes the assumptions and verities of her employers' world and compares them with the vivid realities of her native place. Lucy has no illusions about her own past, but neither is she prepared to be deceived about where she presently is. 

At the same time that Lucy is coming to terms with Lewis's and Mariah's lives, she is also unravelling the mysteries of her own sexuality. Gradually a new person unfolds: passionate, forthright, and disarmingly honest. In Lucy, Jamaica Kincaid has created a startling new character possessed with adamantine clearsightedness and ferocious integrity--a captivating heroine for our time.

Review

Jamaica Kincaid was born in St. John's, Antigua. Her books include At the Bottom of the River, Annie John, Lucy, A Small Place, The Autobiography of My Mother, My Brother, My Garden (Book), Mr. Potter, Talk Stories, a collection of New Yorker writings, and My Favorite Plant, a collection of writings on gardens which she edited. In 2000 she was awarded the Prix F�mina �tranger for My Brother. She lives with her family in Vermont.Like her Annie John ( LJ 4/1/85), Kincaid's new heroine travels the coming-of-age road. Lucy, a 19-year-old West Indi an, sheds her cloistered colonial upbringing by accepting a job as an au pair in New York--the perfect setting for satisfying her gluttonous appetite for both mental and sensual stimulation. The startling disintegration of her employers' marriage triggers flashbacks of home and family; the reflected details are unsettling. Lucy finds being born "woman" places her in a territory she wants to explore and at the same time escape. As she begins her exploration, cathartic tears blur the first pages of her diary. But Lucy plunges ahead, reassured by the discovery of an authentic self. Strong in style and substance, dazzling with its sharp-edged prose, this is a novel no one should miss. Literary Guild selection; previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 6/1/90.

- Bibi S. Thompson, "Library Journal"

Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Lucy

Lucy, a teenage girl from the West Indies, comes to North America to work as an au pair for Lewis and Mariah and their four children. At first glance Lewis and Mariah are a blessed couple – handsome, rich, and seemingly happy. Almost at once, however, Lucy begins to notice cracks in their beautiful facade. With a mixture of anger and compassion, Lucy scrutinizes the privileged, facile world of her employers while comparing it to the vivid realities of her home in the Caribbean. Lucy has no illusions about her own past, but neither is she prepared to be deceived about where she presently is. In this environment a new person unfolds: passionate, sexually forthright, and disarmingly honest. In Lucy, Jamaica Kincaid has created a startling new character: a captivating heroine possessed with clear-sightedness and ferocious integrity. Part of the Picador Collection, a new series showcasing the best of modern literature.

In Lucy, Jamaica Kincaid has created a startling new character: a captivating heroine possessed with clear-sightedness and ferocious integrity. Part of the Picador Collection, a new series showcasing the best of modern literature."

A Character in Transition: The Theme of Reinventing One's Self in Jamaica Kincaid's Work "Lucy"

Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 2,0, Humboldt-University of Berlin (Amerikanistisches Institut), course: HS: Postcolonial Theory, Literature and Gender, 11 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Introduction The autobiographical novel Lucy was written by Jamaica Kincaid in 1990. The author, who was born in 1949 on the Caribbean island of Antigua, is one of the representative figures of postcolonial literature, which has been gaining prominence since the 1970s. With the apppearance of the work “The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures” written by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin in 1989 the popularity of the term “Postcolonialism” grew even more. The definition of the term is still widely discussed but in general postcolonial literature deals with the effects of colonization on the colonized people and society after the end of colonization. The term “post” indicates that Postcolonialism is relating to the time following the establishment of independence in a colony. That means, the time after the colonial powers have left the country and the time of colonization is over. Nevertheless, the issues of Postcolonialism are so many-sided that they often transcend a strict definition of the term, which is therefore used much more loosly in practice. Postcolonial themes not only discuss the period after the departure of the imperial powers but also deal with the time before independence. Major issues are the oppression of the indigenous people by the imperial powers, the gaining of independence, the impact of colonization on postcolonial history and culture, the search for personal and national identity but also the economic dependency of the postcolony on its former colonizers. Thus some critics even question the term Postcolonialsm, since it indicates that the period when the colony was dependent on its colonizers is over. They argue that most former colonies are still or even again economically dependent on the mother country that colonized them. Those neocolonial forms of oppression and exploitation are probably caused by globalization, which means by the increasing mobility of goods, services, labour, technology and capital throughout the world. [...]

With the apppearance of the work “The Empire Writes Back: Theory and Practice in Post-Colonial Literatures” written by Bill Ashcroft, Gareth Griffiths, and Helen Tiffin in 1989 the popularity of the term “Postcolonialism” grew even ..."

Jamaica Kincaid

Beginning with a biographical chapter, this text traces the development of Kincaid's work. Each of the novels and the collection of short stories is discussed in a separate chapter that includes sections on plot, character, and theme.

Beginning with a biographical chapter, this text traces the development of Kincaid's work. Each of the novels and the collection of short stories is discussed in a separate chapter that includes sections on plot, character, and theme."

Understanding Jamaica Kincaid

Understanding Jamaica Kincaid introduces readers to the prizewinning author best known for the novels Annie John, Lucy, and The Autobiography of My Mother. Justin D. Edwards surveys Jamaica Kincaid's life, career, and major works of fiction and nonfiction to identify and discuss her recurring interests in familial relations, Caribbean culture, and the aftermath of colonialism and exploitation. In addition to examining the haunting prose, rich detail, and personal insight that have brought Kincaid widespread praise, Edwards also identifies and analyzes the novelist's primary thematic concerns - the flow of power and the injustices faced by people undergoing social, economic, and political change. Edwards chronicles Kincaid's childhood in Antigua, her development as a writer, and her early journalistic work as published in the New Yorker and other magazines. In separate chapters he provides critical appraisals of Kincaid's early novels; her works of nonfiction, including My Brother and A Small Place; and her more recent novels, including Mr. Potter. colonization and neocolonization and warns her readers about the dire consequences of inequality in the era of globalization.

Understanding Jamaica Kincaid introduces readers to the prizewinning author best known for the novels Annie John, Lucy, and The Autobiography of My Mother."

Mother and Motherland in Jamaica Kincaid

This book introduces students to the work of the Caribbean writer Jamaica Kincaid. The author offers a close analysis of six of Kincaid's works, reading the central theme of the love-hate relationship between mother and daughter as a metaphor for the dialectic of power and powerlessness governing nature and history. Placed in the specific context of the Caribbean in colonial times, the mother-daughter plot reads as an allegory of the conflict between the motherland and the colony. The association is played out at two levels, with the nurturing figure of childhood embodying the African-rooted Caribbean world, and the scornful mother of adolescence evoking the subjugating colonial power. Two conflicting worlds, the African and the European, meet in the duplicitous figure of the mother.

This book introduces students to the work of the Caribbean writer Jamaica Kincaid."

Jamaica Kincaid and Caribbean Double Crossings

Original versions of these contributions were presented at the 2002 conference of the American Comparative Literature Association in San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Original versions of these contributions were presented at the 2002 conference of the American Comparative Literature Association in San Juan, Puerto Rico."

Mukherjee's "Jasmine" and Kincaid's "Lucy". First generation immigrant novels

Seminar paper from the year 2006 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,0, Tel Aviv University (Department of English), course: American Women Writers after World War II, 9 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: I decided to write about the two first generation immigrant novels because I felt that as a woman and a first generation immigrant, I could in a way identify with the protagonists and respond to the problems raised by both authors. The authors, sharing the common cultural space, also share similar experiences and face similar problems. Coming from quite different backgrounds they might have more in common than it would seem at a first glance. In the age of globalization migration has become a world wide issue. Its problems spread from traditionally immigrant countries, like the United States and Canada to Europe. Refugees from the Third World countries fill the pages of magazines and cannot be ignored in cities throughout the world. In this paper I would like to see what problems are raised, what are similarities or differences between the ideas represented in the novels and how autobiographical features influenced the writing.

In this paper I would like to see what problems are raised, what are similarities or differences between the ideas represented in the novels and how autobiographical features influenced the writing."

Jamaica Kincaid's Prismatic Subjects

Nonfiction. Literary Criticism. Women's Studies. African American Studies. Jamaica Kincaid's polyphonic narratives, at once locational, relational and intercultural, speak lyrically to the widest constituency. They also might be said to provide the cognitive tools through which the reader makes sense of being in the contemporary world. Covi's JAMAICA KINCAID'S PRISMATIC SUBJECTS: MAKING SENSE OF BEING IN THE WORLD proposes a fresh reading of Kincaid's lyrical and political storytelling as a central contribution to materially-grounded feminist and postcolonial theories over the past twenty years. Covi foregrounds the relevance of Kincaid's articulation of such a discourse and shows just how it is capable of accounting for contemporary socio-cultural complexity and of pointing the way towards a politics of collective justice.

Covi's JAMAICA KINCAID'S PRISMATIC SUBJECTS: MAKING SENSE OF BEING IN THE WORLD proposes a fresh reading of Kincaid's lyrical and political storytelling as a central contribution to materially-grounded feminist and postcolonial theories ..."

Caribbean Genesis

Philosophical exploration of Jamaica Kincaid’s entire literary oeuvre.

Philosophical exploration of Jamaica Kincaid’s entire literary oeuvre."

The Autobiography of My Mother

Celebrating Fifty Years of Picador Books Xuela Claudette Richardson is recalling the last seventy years of her life, and so she must begin with her birth, and the accompanying death of her mother. Xuela’s vivid, visceral recollections of the lonely, unsettled life that follows the trauma of her arrival include that of her distant father, who sends her away to another household at the earliest opportunity; of her passion for the stevedore Roland, who fulfils her sexually but not intellectually; and of her husband, who provides her with status and a wealthy lifestyle but whom she is incapable of loving. Poetic and disturbing, The Autobiography of My Mother is one of Kincaid’s most powerful statements of Afro-Caribbean women’s struggle for identity and independence, against a hostile backdrop of sexism and colonialism. Part of the Picador Collection, a new series showcasing the best of modern literature.

Part of the Picador Collection, a new series showcasing the best of modern literature."

Party

A beautifully illustrated story of three girls caught up in the most curious of mysteries.

Pam, Beth and Sue are at a party celebrating the Nancy Drew mystery books, when they discover a mystery at the party itself."

A Small Place

A brilliant look at colonialism and its effects in Antigua - by the author of Annie John."

At the Bottom of the River

Powerful and lyrical, this is an unforgettable collection from a unique and necessary literary voice.Part of the Picador Collection, a new series showcasing the best of modern literature."

Mother Imagery in the Novels of Afro-Caribbean Women

"Focusing on specific texts by Jamaica Kincaid, Maryse Conde, and Paule Marshall, this study explores the intricate trichotomous relationship between the mother (biological or surrogate), the motherlands Africa and the Caribbean, and the mothercountry represented by England, France, and/or North America. The mother-daughter relationships in the works discussed address the complex, conflicting notions of motherhood that exist within this trichotomy. Although mothering is usually socialized as a welcoming, nurturing notion, Alexander argues that alongside this nurturing notion there exists much conflict. Specifically, she argues that the mother-daughter relationship, plagued with ambivalence, is often further conflicted by colonialism or colonial intervention from the "other," the colonial mothercountry." "Mother Imagery in the Novels of Afro-Caribbean Women offers an overview of Caribbean women's writings from the 1990s, focusing on the personal relationships these three authors have had with their mothers and/or motherlands to highlight links, despite social, cultural, geographical, and political differences, among Afro-Caribbean women and their writings. Alexander traces acts of resistance, which facilitate the (re)writing/righting of the literary canon and the conception of a "newly created genre" and a "womanist" tradition through fictional narratives with autobiographical components." --Book Jacket.

" "Mother Imagery in the Novels of Afro-Caribbean Women offers an overview of Caribbean women's writings from the 1990s, focusing on the personal relationships these three authors have had with their mothers and/or motherlands to highlight ..."

Small Worlds, Global Lives

Geologists, most from Australia and Britain but with some outliers from continental Europe and North America, focus on small islands, where the scarcity of people and resources make migration substantially important socially and economically. The topics include the Azores; historical, cultural, and literary perspectives on emigration from the minor islands of Ireland; Nevis and the post-war labor movement in Britain; islands and the migration experience in the fiction of Jamaica Kincaid; from dystopia to utopia on Norfolk Island; Tongans online; the changing contours of migrant Samoan kinship; and finding a retirement place in sunny Corfu.

9 Between the Devil and a Warm Blue Sea : Islands and the Migration Experience in the Fiction of Jamaica Kincaid Rachel Hughes [ T ] he ... I am specifically interested in Kincaid's semi - autobiographical novel Lucy published in 1991."

Cosmopolitan Fictions

Participating in the reframing of literary studies, Cosmopolitan Fictions identifies, as "cosmopolitan fiction\

The works take as their subjects: * European unification * the human rights movement * the AIDS epidemic * the new South Africa."

Making Men

Colonialism left an indelible mark on writers from the Caribbean. Many of the mid-century male writers, on the eve of independence, looked to England for their models. The current generation of authors, many of whom are women, have increasingly looked--and relocated--to the United States. Incorporating postcolonial theory, West Indian literature, feminist theory, and African American literary criticism, Making Men carves out a particular relationship between the Caribbean canon--as represented by C. L. R. James and V. S. Naipaul, among others--and contemporary Caribbean women writers such as Jean Rhys, and Jamaica Kincaid, Paule Marshall, and Michelle Cliff, who now live in the United States. Discussing the canonical Caribbean narrative as it reflects national identity under the domination of English cultural authority, Belinda Edmondson focuses particularly on the pervasive influence of Victorian sensibilities in the structuring of twentieth-century national identity. She shows that issues of race and English constructions of masculinity not only are central to West Indian identity but also connect Caribbean authorship to the English literary tradition. This perspective on the origins of West Indian literary nationalism then informs Edmondson's search for female subjectivity in current literature by West Indian women immigrants in America. Making Men compares the intellectual exile of men with the economic migration of women, linking the canonical male tradition to the writing of modern West Indian women and exploring how the latter write within and against the historical male paradigm in the continuing process of national definition. With theoretical claims that invite new discourse on English, Caribbean, and American ideas of exile, migration, race, gender identity, and literary authority, Making Men will be informative reading for those involved with postcolonial theory, African American and women's studies, and Caribbean literature.

4 For a more detailed analysis of Jamaica Kincaid's Lucy and its use of " home " and " away " thematics , see my discussion in chapter 6 . ... ( Hereafter all quotations from the novel are taken from the Penguin edition , 1991. ) ..."

Writing African American Women: K-Z

"Contributors look at the writers and their works from a feminist-womanist perspective, and address issues relating to race, class, and gender. Topical entries, e.g., "Work," "Protest Tradition," "Religion," "The Use of Myth," and "Memory," provide a rich context for the literature."--Choice review.

The history of African American feminist literature spans approximately only 250 years , yet a majority of black female writers express a common thematic concern : the struggle of black women to seek dignity and freedom in a racist and ..."

The Transnationalism of American Culture

This book studies the transnational nature of American cultural productions, examining how they serve as ways of perceiving American culture. Visiting literature, film, and music, it considers how manifestations of American culture have traveled and what has happened to the texts in the process, including how they have been commodified.

Published in 1990, Jamaica Kincaid's novel Lucy and its eponymous protagonist have been in the center of much discussion on the subject of selfidentification.1 Critics have analyzed: Lucy's identity formation as a product of an animated ..."

Writing African American Women

The history of African American feminist literature spans approximately only 250 years , yet a majority of black female writers express a common thematic concern: the struggle of black women to seek dignity and freedom in a racist and ..."

Clear Word and Third Sight

DIVAn exploration of the implicit and explicit ways that an alternate African diasporic consciousness, grounded in folk mores, is expressed in Afro-Caribbean writing./div

In 1990 Jamaica Kincaid's second novel , Lucy , was published by Farrar , Straus and Giroux . While Annie in Annie John leaves for school in England at the end of that story , the young West Indian woman Lucy is a recent United States ..."

Making Homes in the West/Indies

This study focuses on the ways in which two of the most prominent Caribbean women writers residing in the United States, Michelle Cliff and Jamaica Kincaid, have made themselves at home within Caribbean poetics, even as their migration to the United States affords them participation and acceptance within its literary space.

This study focuses on the ways in which two of the most prominent Caribbean women writers residing in the United States, Michelle Cliff and Jamaica Kincaid, have made themselves at home within Caribbean poetics, even as their migration to ..."

Unsettling the Bildungsroman

Unsettling the Bildungsroman combines genre and cultural theory and offers a cross-ethnic comparative approach to the tradition of the female novel of development and the American coming-of-age narrative. Examines the work of Jamaica Kincaid, Sandra Cisneros, Maxine Hong Kingston, and Audre Lorde.

Unsettling the Bildungsroman combines genre and cultural theory and offers a cross-ethnic comparative approach to the tradition of the female novel of development and the American coming-of-age narrative."

White on White/black on Black

White on White/Black on Black is a unique contribution to the philosophy of race. The book explores how fourteen philosophers, seven white and seven black, philosophically understand the dynamics of the process of racialization. Combined, the contributions demonstrate different and similar conceptual trajectories of raced identities that emerge from within and across the racial divide. Each of the fourteen philosophers, who share a textual space of exploration, name blackness/whiteness, revealing significant political, cultural, and existential aspects of what it means to be black/white. Through the power of naming and theorizing whiteness and blackness, White on White/Black on Black dares to bring clarity and complexity to our understanding of race identity.

An Aesthetic Stand - off Jamaica Kincaid's novel Lucy is the story of a young black woman from an un- named Caribbean island , who arrives in an unnamed city in North America to take up employment as an au - pair in a white family ."