A Small
Place
by Jamaica Kincaid
Published: 2000

Customers Review: A Caribbean jeremiad - "A Small Place," by Jamaica Kincaid, is a nonfiction prose piece about the Caribbean island of Antigua. The author bio at the beginning of the book notes that the author was born on Antigua. A lean 81 pages, this is nonetheless a powerful text.

Kincaid discusses British colonialism, the corruption of the Antiguan government, racism, and greed. It seems to me a key question raised by the book is whether post-colonial Antigua is worse than colonial Antigua. The book is very much haunted by the spectre of New World slavery.

This book is a dark, angry jeremiad. I think it works better when seen as an extended prose poem rather than as an essay. As the latter, it could be criticized as full of invalid generalizations and undocumented claims. But as a poetic/prophetic text, it is chillingly effective.

Ultimately, Kincaid's vision of the human condition is extremely negative But her haunting, almost hypnotic prose really held me. I recommend the book to anyone planning a trip to a poor country for their own pleasure. - Reviewer: Michael J. Mazza from Pittsburgh, PA USA , April 9, 2003

At the Bottom
of the River
by Jamaica Kincaid
Published: 2000

Book Description: Reading Jamaica Kincaid is to plunge, gently, into another way of seeing both the physical world and its elusive inhabitants. Her voice is, by turns, navely whimsical and biblical in its assurance, and it speaks of what is partially remembered and partly divined. The memories often concern a childhood in the Caribbean-family, manners, and landscape-as distilled and transformed by Kincaid's special style and vision.

Kincaid leads her readers to consider, as if for the first time, the powerful ties between mother and child; the beauty and destructiveness of nature; the gulf between the masculine and the feminine; the significance of familiar things-a house, a cup, a pen. Transfiguring our human form and our surroundings-shedding skin, darkening an afternoon, painting a perfect place-these stories tell us something we didn't know, in a way we hadn't expected.

Derek Walcott
"... will hum on your shelf... choked with love to incite envy, too humble for admiration, and ... startling to escape astonishment."

Customer Review: Brilliant! - Just as a diamond's facets make it shine, At the Bottom of the River is composed of disparate glimpses of brilliance. Short short stories in a unifying vein of carribean color, these pieces are mystical, sensual and poetic. The cadence of Kincaid's language takes hold of you-- you don't read this book so much as you surf it. . . you breathe it. . . you feel it resonate within you long after it's over. -- Reviewer: Sarah Payne from Virginia, November 20, 1999

All the
Blood
Is Red
by Leone Ross
Published: 1997

Customer Review: Indepth characters, excellent language. - Step aside Terri McMillan. This author has managed to create an indepth study of her characters through excellent use of the English language and skillful intertwining of the narrative and flasback techniques.

Made more potent by the authenticity...realness of the characters in the way their backgrounds and situations affect their lifestyle, attitudes, even speech patterns, the reader soon finds themselves taking sides, giving advice, turning pages, in anticipation of the next heartbreak, success, scandal...

In Mavis, who remains Jamaican in attitude, look and speech even after many years away, and Nicola, who taught herself to get over childhood insecurities, we see our Aunties, cousins, friends. This largely due to the author's skill in choosing potent, personal incidents in each character's life which allows the reader to recall any number of persons we all know. It's a great story.

Buy the book, read it. Buy it for friends as I have done, it might help someone in their personal life.

You will surely share my enthusiam about this and anticipation of Ross next project. - Reviewer: axleagain from Queens, New York, December 28, 1998

Customer Review: Intense - A stunning book. I felt like I knew every single person. I understood what drove them. I loved that! Having lived in Jamaica for seven years, I felt the author captured the sights, smells and sounds of a beautiful country and a resilient people.

Mavis's story sang the blues for all women who've lived at the edge of abundance they couldn't touch. The women in London lived out the legacy of a struggle they didn't understand. Doing the very best they could with the wisdom, knowledge and understanding they have. Learning, changing and growing through each experience. It's a book about victory, even when it doesn't look they way we thought it would. Ross has a powerful writer's voice; one we will hear well in the new millenium. - Reviewer: Carol Russell from London, England, July 27, 2000

Orange
Laughter:
A Novel
by Leone Ross
Published: 2001

Book Description: Tony Pellar, a man of former style and fading beauty, has fled to the subway tunnels beneath New York. There he makes an even more perilous interior journey convinced the key to his sanity lies in retracing the events of his North Carolina childhood.

As Tony gradually remembers, the stories of both his childhood friend Mikey, and of Agatha, a complex woman with a disfigured face, interweave with his own. All three stories finally come together against the backdrop of the civil rights movement and a heartrending and haunting climax.

Customer Review: A Surprise Treat - I hadn't heard of Orange Laughter or its' author Leone Ross prior to reading this novel. But I promise you that after reading this delightful novel you will never forget the book nor its' author.

Orange laughter totally surprised me, by the depth to which it was written and the way it navigated from the rural South during the turbulent Civil Rights movement to the present conditions of life under the tunnels of New York. It also managed to provide total insight into the mind of a mentally disturbed individual and how easy it is to go from above average intelligence to insanity. Orange Laughter is brillantly written in a style like none other. A totally enjoyable read. -- Reviewer: goodwitchglenda from Baltimore, May 4, 2001