In Search of Annie Drew: Jamaica Kincaid's Mother and Muse
There is perhaps no other person who has been so often and obsessively featured in any writer’s canon as Jamaica Kincaid’s mother, Annie Drew. In this provocative new book, Daryl Dance argues that everything Kincaid has written, regardless of its apparent theme, actually relates to Kincaid’s efforts to free herself from her mother, whether her subject is ostensibly other family members, her home nation, a precolonial world, or even Kincaid herself.A devoted reader of Kincaid’s work, Dance had long been aware of the author’s love-hate relationship with her mother, but it was not until reading the 2008 essay "The Estrangement" that Dance began to ponder who this woman named Annie Victoria Richardson Drew really was. Dance decided to seek the answers herself, embarking on a years-long journey to unearth the real Annie Drew.

Through interviews and extensive research, Dance has pieced together a fuller, more contextualized picture in an attempt to tell Annie Drew’s story. Previous analyses of Kincaid’s relationship with her mother have not gone beyond the writer’s own carefully orchestrated and sometimes contrived portraits of her. In Search of Annie Drew offers an alternate reading of Kincaid’s work that expands our understanding of the object of such passionate love and such ferocious hatred, an ordinary woman who became an unforgettable literary figure through her talented daughter’s renderings.

"1122868874"
In Search of Annie Drew: Jamaica Kincaid's Mother and Muse
There is perhaps no other person who has been so often and obsessively featured in any writer’s canon as Jamaica Kincaid’s mother, Annie Drew. In this provocative new book, Daryl Dance argues that everything Kincaid has written, regardless of its apparent theme, actually relates to Kincaid’s efforts to free herself from her mother, whether her subject is ostensibly other family members, her home nation, a precolonial world, or even Kincaid herself.A devoted reader of Kincaid’s work, Dance had long been aware of the author’s love-hate relationship with her mother, but it was not until reading the 2008 essay "The Estrangement" that Dance began to ponder who this woman named Annie Victoria Richardson Drew really was. Dance decided to seek the answers herself, embarking on a years-long journey to unearth the real Annie Drew.

Through interviews and extensive research, Dance has pieced together a fuller, more contextualized picture in an attempt to tell Annie Drew’s story. Previous analyses of Kincaid’s relationship with her mother have not gone beyond the writer’s own carefully orchestrated and sometimes contrived portraits of her. In Search of Annie Drew offers an alternate reading of Kincaid’s work that expands our understanding of the object of such passionate love and such ferocious hatred, an ordinary woman who became an unforgettable literary figure through her talented daughter’s renderings.

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In Search of Annie Drew: Jamaica Kincaid's Mother and Muse

In Search of Annie Drew: Jamaica Kincaid's Mother and Muse

by Daryl Cumber Dance
In Search of Annie Drew: Jamaica Kincaid's Mother and Muse

In Search of Annie Drew: Jamaica Kincaid's Mother and Muse

by Daryl Cumber Dance

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Overview

There is perhaps no other person who has been so often and obsessively featured in any writer’s canon as Jamaica Kincaid’s mother, Annie Drew. In this provocative new book, Daryl Dance argues that everything Kincaid has written, regardless of its apparent theme, actually relates to Kincaid’s efforts to free herself from her mother, whether her subject is ostensibly other family members, her home nation, a precolonial world, or even Kincaid herself.A devoted reader of Kincaid’s work, Dance had long been aware of the author’s love-hate relationship with her mother, but it was not until reading the 2008 essay "The Estrangement" that Dance began to ponder who this woman named Annie Victoria Richardson Drew really was. Dance decided to seek the answers herself, embarking on a years-long journey to unearth the real Annie Drew.

Through interviews and extensive research, Dance has pieced together a fuller, more contextualized picture in an attempt to tell Annie Drew’s story. Previous analyses of Kincaid’s relationship with her mother have not gone beyond the writer’s own carefully orchestrated and sometimes contrived portraits of her. In Search of Annie Drew offers an alternate reading of Kincaid’s work that expands our understanding of the object of such passionate love and such ferocious hatred, an ordinary woman who became an unforgettable literary figure through her talented daughter’s renderings.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780813938448
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
Publication date: 06/20/2016
Pages: 264
Product dimensions: 6.30(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Daryl Cumber Dance, Professor of English Emerita at the University of Richmond, is the author of Shuckin’ and Jivin’: Folklore from Contemporary African Americans and editor of Honey Hush! An Anthology of African American Women’s Humor.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix

List of Abbreviations xiii

Introduction: Filling In the Gaps 1

1 Beginnings in Dominica 15

2 Free and Single in Antigua 25

3 Raising an Only Child 42

4 After Eden 84

5 In America… Finally 107

6 The Silent Years and the Reconnection 125

7 Annie Drew and Her Boys 153

8 A Brother's Death/A Sister's Fears and Fury 164

9 Annie Drew's Last Years 183

10 Jamaica's God Is Stilled 194

Epilogue: "I Married My Mother" 201

Notes 211

Bibliography 227

Index 237

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