This 1988 book was looking at me when I passed by one of the shelves of my favorite thrift store. It's an 80 page essay on the Caribbean island of Antigua where author Jamaica Kincaid grew up. I've read some of Kincaid's essays in publications and look forward to fitting this one in soon. The Amazon review describes it as Swiftian in tone; for this reader that's good. I have registered it as "Literature and Fiction" because that's the general BookCrossing consensus. It doesn't seem an accurate representation--but for BookCrossing purposes--I'll go with it.

This is a bitter, angry and well written essay. As a child of British Colonialism myself, I found it uncomfortable to read at times. Kincaid openly hates Europeans and calls them "rubbish." She's not kind to her own people either. Though she seems relieved that British rule has ended, she also deplores the corruption of the independent Antiguan government. And she hates tourism! I joined her in this feeling. Reading this awakened an interest in Kincaid's Antigua: "a small place, a small island. It is nine miles wide by twelve miles long." This was published 32 years ago. Reading about contemporary Antigua after I finished this, I saw not much has changed. I will look for Kincaid's novella Lucy, published two years after this in 1990, and perhaps re-read this after reading that novel.

This haunting essay is on a friend's wishlist so I am sending it her way this first day of March 2020. The flower on the book plate is an October-blooming Spider Lilly. This one is from an antebellum house in northeast Georgia. The old house and garden were abandoned for many years but many of the old plants survived and they have a very vivid beauty.

Wow! You are so good to me, Cordelia-Anne! It has been a miserable week, with that useless Daylight Savings Time, a Full Moon, today’s Friday the 13th (one of my favourite days!) and Corvid-19 craziness. I am feeling overworked and underloved, waiting for the news of the schools being shut down and then I was blessed with your package! The house was empty and quiet, so I made myself a coffee and opened this book. Thank you so much for taking my mind away from Calgary and my life, to the little island of Antigua!