Jamaica Kincaid on See Now Then: It's Not About My Life

Novelist Jamaica Kincaid, whose spunk I admire even if her work sometimes loses me, is interviewed by Felicia Lee at the New York Times. There are parallels between her and the main character of her new book -- it sure sounds a lot like her -- but, alas:

“I’m so used to being misunderstood,” she said. “They say, ‘She’s angry.’ ‘Her sentences are too long.’ One reviewer accused me of not dealing with race and class. I think in my next novel I should say, ‘They’re black and they’ve been beaten,’ something like that.”

The words “See Now Then” are repeated throughout the 182-page novel, which is as much mythological as domestic. There is little dialogue and no real plot. The Sweets’ home life and the earth itself are unpredictable. Mrs. Sweet, like Ms. Kincaid an avid gardener and writer from the Caribbean, at one point reads her son, Heracles, a story about 100 million years of rain.