Rating: 
Summary: My Brother
Review: "My Brother" by Jamaica Kincaid is one of the most unusual books I have ever read. It is moving, inspiring, depressing, emotional yet confusing all at the same time. The book is about a sister's journey as she helps her brother fight against AIDS to stay alive. It gives many explicit details that are disturbing. She paints a picture that can only be told by the one who experienced it first hand. In addition to the morbid mood of the book, the author has too many thoughts that she tries to fit into just one sentence. This form of writing can be hard to follow and actually trying to follow the storyline can be a distraction from the main focus of the book.
Jamaica Kincaid's novel is depressing and morbid in numerous ways. The setting of "My Brother" is mainly taking place in Antigua. There are no hospitals with the proper medications. In addition to the setting, the author's family affairs are an example of depression. Her family was extremely dysfunctional and unsociable. They had conflicts over meaningless situations and never resolved them. This family needed a psychiatrist to assist them with their many conflicts. Another example of depression in "My Brother" is the entire theme of a brother with no loving family and friends who is dying of AIDS, due to his own carelessness. On page 99-100, it shows how Jamaica's family is not affected in the least that Devon has just died. The one last main theme of depression is the relationship between Devon, the man with AIDS, and his mother. They never got along, which was very sad because Devon was dying and his mother didn't seem to care. She didn't do anything to try to help save him. It was Jamaica's help that gave her brother many extra days, perhaps years, of life.
"My Brother" was also a very confusing book. Reading it takes the complete focus of the one who is reading it in order to actually follow the story line. Many of the sentences are three or four thoughts combined into just one sentence. The book has a great number of sentences that are nearly half a page long. For example, on page 101 and 131, one of the sentences is nearly three quarters of the page. There are a great deal of commas, semi colons, and a few parenthesis in these sentences. With all of those elements, reading and actually comprehending the book can be very tough. Also, the author constantly bounces back from the present time to past experiences, which greatly contributes to the confusion.
My final opinion of this book is that it is very inspirational and moving. If one is close to someone with AIDS, they would find this book very enjoyable and interesting. Jamaica mentions many times that she doesn't love, never has loved and never will love her brother, yet she still goes way beyond her duties to care for her brother. After reading "My Brother" there are many instances where Jamaica is much like a true hero. By supporting her brother, Jamaica became a hero to herself and to Devon. The book is inspiring because it encourages anyone who reads the book to love their family and not take them for granted. "My Brother" is a moving book because throughout it, one learns of the struggles the entire family went through. Devon's critical conditions, however, did not bring the family any closer together. An example of a struggle the author told of was a time when her mother disapproved of something one of her other children did, and she began to throw stones at him. Her son then threw his mother to the ground and broke her neck (pg. 189). That experience the author described really stuck out because it sounded so unreasonable.
"My Brother" is a novel that one would not consider to be easy reading, not just because the style of writing was confusing, but because it was not a happy story. After reading this book, one would feel bad for Jamaica's family, yet inspired by her words. The book was hard reading, mainly because it was done in an unusual type of writing. It was also very depressing and had a definite morbid feel to it, yet it was extremely inspirational. It encourages those who read it to love your family while they're still there for you.
Rating:
Summary: My Brother
Review: English Charlotte Wood
Book Review 1/4/02 The biography My Brother written by Jamaica Kincaid describes a heroic womens
life growing up in a poor household and a very difficult family situation. Jamaica possesses
nearly opposite qualities as the hero of the book The Odyssey. In mythology literature a
hero is strong, takes revenge, is powerful and has beauty. In todays society and also in
My Brother a hero is a person who helps others and is a positive role model.
The story is told by Jamaica herself, in first person. When her brother is diagnosed
with the HIV virus she is quickly reunited with her family and her past. A past that she left
behind at age 16. She travels back to her home in Antigua. There she finds her mother. A
women who she respected but did not love. I had sympathy for her then, but still no love,
only sympathy, and some revulsion, as I felt what had just happened to her-her child had
died, she would be burying one of her children-was a contagious disease and just to be
around her, just to be so near her meant I might catch it. (Page 173)
During her many trips to Antigua Jamaica learns many things about her family and
her life. It also reminds her of many dreadful childhood memories. Such as the time when
her mother burns her most precious possessions, her books. I insisted on reading books.
In a fit of anger that I can remember so well, as if it had been a natural disaster, as if it had
been a hurricane or an erupting volcano, or just simply the end of the world, my mother
found my books, all the books that I had read, some of them books I had bought, though
with money I had stolen, some of them I had simply stolen, for once I read a book, no
matter its literary quality I could not part with it. (Page 132)
Although the story is titled My Brother it mostly illustrates Jamaicas perspective
on his life and her own. She greatly portrays a hero figure. She is taken out of her ordinary
world and put into a controversial situation. She chooses the path to go back to her
childhood home and help her family and her brother. Although she does not love her
brother she pays for very expensive medication and takes care of him. At the beginning of
the book her brother denies having the virus, Me no get dat chupidness, man. Jamaicas
willingness to help her brother and determination shows that she is generous enough to
help someone just recently brought back into her life, that she hardly even knows.
I recommend this book to anyone who wants to read it. It is a gratifying story of
heroism and family. It reminds people of what is really important in life and that one
person can make a difference.
Rating:
Summary: Enlightening
Review: I first read Jamaica Kincaid's work in "Talk Stories", and I loved it. I discovered this book (My Brother) when reading the book "Writing as a Way of Healing" by Louise DeSalvo. I was curious about Jamaica's life and her writing style intrigued me. Through her writing, Jamaica brings beauty to even the most difficult of life's experiences. She writes, "That sun, that sun. On the last day of our visit its rays seemed as pointed and unfriendly as an enemy's well-aimed spear."(p.73) Her writing is honest and balanced between expressing the hard aspects and the kindness within her family life. This book is mostly about her brother dying of AIDS, a very difficult subject matter to read. I also enjoyed reading about how she became a writer, and what it means to her to be a writer. This book also tells about life in Antigua, which I was especially interested in learning about. The next book I will read by Jamaica is "A Small Place", to learn more about life in Antigua.
Rating:
Summary: Enlightening
Review: I first read Jamaica Kincaid's work in "Talk Stories", and I loved it. I discovered this book (My Brother) when reading the book "Writing as a Way of Healing" by Louise DeSalvo. I was curious about Jamaica's life and her writing style intrigued me. Through her writing, Jamaica brings beauty to even the most difficult of life's experiences. She writes, "That sun, that sun. On the last day of our visit its rays seemed as pointed and unfriendly as an enemy's well-aimed spear."(p.73) Her writing is honest and balanced between expressing the hard aspects and the kindness within her family life. This book is mostly about her brother dying of AIDS, a very difficult subject matter to read. I also enjoyed reading about how she became a writer, and what it means to her to be a writer. This book also tells about life in Antigua, which I was especially interested in learning about. The next book I will read by Jamaica is "A Small Place", to learn more about life in Antigua.
Rating: 
Summary: What was that all about???
Review: I was only in page 21 (Random House UK edition) when I started crying, and thought, "What a wonderful book this is". Two hours and 150-plus pages later, after finishing Kincaid's "My Brother", I was asking myself, "What was that all about?" I have no problem, unlike other reviewers in this forum, with the interesting style used in Kincaid's book. It was very brave of her, in fact, to experiment. The most annoying element, I thought, about this book is the fact that all your characters are strong, dynamic characters yet the author did not use the opportunity to utilise this advantage. What was offered, instead, was clouded set of stories from an angry author's unimaginative viewpoint. Kincaid's brother, Devon Drew, died of AIDS at a very young age (he was only thirty-three). He was an intelligent, charming young person, and a dreamer who could have been something. He died, however, as an unknown, "of a disease that had a great shame attached to it." Their mother is a powerful and, at times, threatening figure. She, of course, is the central character of this biography (despite the fact that its title suggests otherwise). What she did in the past (The burning of Kincaid's books when she was a child) consumes a quarter of "My Brother". Now, these are two really "good" characters. Somehow, however, Kincaid saw only the banality of her world (and the world of the two), and, in the process, failed to bring home the bacon.
Rating:
Summary: A Complicated Work
Review: Jamaica Kincaid tells the story of her ill brother and his encounters with the virus HIV. The story has the title of My Brother by Jamaica Kincaid. The story is essentially written to save Jamaica's own life. Whenever there is a tragic happening in her family, she writes about to let her feelings out and she also tries to exclude herself from her family. She moves away from Antigua once she became old enough to do so. Jamaica goes through sever years without connection to her mother and her siblings. Jamaica struggles to find feelings for her sick and dying brother as he spends his last days in an old run down hospital in Antigua. Jamaica is only able to let her own feelings out in a comfortable manner to Dr. Prince Ramsey. Jamaica is unable to communicate with her own mother. This is due to Jamaica's feeling that her mother was only a mother at certain times. Jamaica is driven on the idea that her mother only wants to care for her children if they were sick or in need of caring. Any time other than that, Jamaica thinks she had a poor mother. Jamaica is pleased however with few things her mother did. When Jamaica was only fifteen years old, she was forced to look after her younger brother who was only age two. She decided to read her books all day long and decided that looking after her younger brother was not a number one priority. Jamaica realized at the end of her reading that her mother would be home soon so she tried to clean up the things she thought her mother would realize first. One of these things was her brothers diaper but Jamaica did not have enough time to change so once her mother found this out, she took all of Jamaica's books, took them outside, doused them with kerosene, and burned them all, every last book. Jamaica recalls this event as driving her to become a written to make up for all for all of the books that she had lost at a young age.
Throughout the book Jamaica conveys her struggle to find love for her dying brother, Devon Drew. She never was close at all to her younger brother and as her brother became more sick, Jamaica knew she need to do something to redeem her self for all of the years she was absent in the presence of her brother. On page 72, Jamaica and her mother have a conversation about bringing her brother the medicine that prolonged his life several months more. Her mother said to her that god would bless her richly for providing her brother with the medicine, AZT. Jamaica was not sure if what her mother said was true but she was really not concerned with gods or being richly blessed. Jamaica was constantly thinking about how her brother was sick and how much Antiguan society shunned HIV positive people. Even though her brother was feeling better from the AZT, Jamaica knew that eventually her brother would die. On January 19th, 1996, at the age of thirty-three, Devon Drew died.
At certain times throughout the story, Jamaica thinks that it is perhaps better if her brother would just die, but when Devon was no more, Jamaica did not know what to feel. At certain points throughout the story, Jamaica feels that Devon is becoming a burden to her, making fly from her home in Vermont to Antigua, every time her brother needed more AZT. On page 87 she states that it seemed that his dying was a good thing, she was relieved when her brother finally did die. She says " when that moment came, the moment I knew he was no longer alive, I didn't know what to think, I didn't know how to feel" I think that this sentence conveys the struggle Jamaica has internally about her brothers illness and about how she felt about him when he was alive. During the story Jamaica also remembers the death of her father. She got word of his death right around Christmas time and she felt increasingly depressed. On page 119 Jamaica says " In the letter telling me that my father is (that is, the man who was not really my father but whom played I thought of as my father, and the man who had filled that role in my life) had died, my mother said his death left them impoverished, that she had been unable to pay for his burial, and the only charitable of others allowed him to have an ordinary burial, not an extraordinary burial of a pauper, with its anonymous grave and which no proper mourners attend". Throughout the second half of the book, Jamaica demonstrates her increasing anger toward her father and her brother. She becomes very angered at the thought of anyone dying and she keeps feeling that she really did not care about the loss of her father, only how to try and make up for the lost time with her brother, who in retrospect never really seemed to love Jamaica as a sister, just perhaps someone who provided him life with more AZT. Jamaica has difficulty dealing with all of the tragic experiences that has happened to her family, that is why one could feel that Jamaica isolated herself from her family. She feels that at certain times throughout the book she feels that perhaps she is to blame for being in the absence of her ill brother.
One could feel that Jamaica Kincaid does represent a hero but in defined terms. At times the only reason she is able to provide her brother with AZT is because she has had a better life than the rest of her family and she also has more money than the rest of her family. She tries her hardest to find love for her brother, even though she really cannot relate to any of his problems. She buys him temporary relief with the AZT medicine, but she knows that is not enough to make up for all of the lost years she had been without her brother. One might not necessarily think that Jamaica wanted to reconnect with her brother and the rest of her family, one might think that she just wanted to see him again before he died. While visiting her brother the experiences Jamaica had with her mother did make her more stressed out and more prone to mental and physical breakdowns. One could say that Jamaica did triumph all of the death and stress that was associated with her mother and the rest of her family.
One cold imagine that this story is heartfelt at times and a very good read. Some parts of the story were somewhat confusing when Jamaica puts things like my father (not my father but my brother's father) in parentheses. It seems as though she does want a mother and father but at times is seems as though Jamaica knows that maybe they do not want to be parents to her. This book is touching on several levels and anyone who has family members who are sick can relate to this book. This book was moving and really from the heart (of Jamaica Kincaid). One could feel that this book could be given to almost anyone and that person would be moved emotionally as well as physically. This book tells the story of hardship and death a young girl inspired to write her feelings in order to save her own life. Jamaica was inspired by the acts of her mother burning the few items she truly loved in live. Her books. She is familiar with the act of saving herself, so when she found out her brother was sick and dying. She started to write she knew that was the only was to understand his sickness, and she also began to write so she would not die with him. This book was amazing and is truly one of the best works of all times. It deals with emotion and real life situations. One feels that anyone who wants to learn the story of a girl who overcame the impoverished life of her family and the way Jamaica tried to save her own brother even when she could not relate to him, and she did with grace and inner strength that is unprecedented and amazing. She tried to keep a smile on her face and have a strong heart through it all.
Rating:
Summary: My Brother, a beautiful account
Review: Jamaica Kinkaid's book My Brother, is an emothional, poetic, and surprisingly frank account of the life and death of her brother, Devon. Not only is this book about her brother, but it is also about the many hardships her family experienced in her birthplace of Antigua. Although there are many aspects about this book that may disturb readers, overall it is a wonderful book that keeps readers interested from beginning to end.
Living a normal life in Vermont with her husband and children. Jamaica receieves a phone call from a friend in Antigua. Her youngest brother had been diagnosed with the AIDS virus. Jamaica is forced to leave her home and help her mother and brother who are poor and cannot afford treatment for the AIDS.
While back in Antigua, Jamaica is met by memories from her past. Memories of her mother who she no longer spoke to, and memories of her Rastafarian brother who live a life filled with drugs and unprotected sex. These all led up to him ultimately getting the AIDS virus and facing death.
Jamaica returns to see her brother who she hadn't seen in over 20 years, only to find him ill. The author (Jamaica) gruesomely describes the pain and symptoms he experiences during this time, and his developed dependance on his mother. Jamaica writes, "He lived in death." (p.88). For he did not live besides the fact that he ate and breathed. Ultimately she knew he would eventually die.
The entire scond half of the book is based on a time after his death. Jamaic writes about her feelings toward her brother feelings toward the dead, and the affect her brother's death had on the people in his life. Jamaica writes beautifully about death. Her writing is poetic, and she makes many profound comments. She wrote My Brother as a way to cope with and understand his death. Even though she barely knew him or for that matter loved him.
Jamaica Kincaid writes beautifully, poeticly and thruthfully frank. It is a great book that makes you think about life and death. It is not a p[articularly easy read. The writer goes off on tangents which can be confusing. But that is because she wanted to fit in all details. Her frankness with the subject and use of dialect in her writing makes this book real. It's a good read and beautifully done.
Rating:
Summary: ENIGMATIC
Review: Kincaid is one of the pillars of American literature at present. Her AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF MY MOTHER was nominated for the prestigious Dublin-IMPAC Award, and a widely-praised writer. Her brother, Devon Drew, died of AIDS at a very young age (he was only thirty-three). He was an intelligent, charming young person, and a dreamer who could have been something. He died, however, as an unknown, "of a disease that had a great shame attached to it."
Their mother is a powerful and, at times, threatening figure. She, of course, is the central character of this biography (despite the fact that its title suggests otherwise). What she did in the past (The burning of Kincaid's books when she was a child) consumes a quarter of "My Brother".
I found the MY BROTHER frustrating when I first read it (In fact, I wrote an earlier review trumpeting how bad it is). But this is a very confronting, powerful book, and worth reading. One that is enigmatic, and humane underneath
Rating: 
Summary: Not My Brother, But My Mother's Son
Review: My Brother is a novel by Jamaica Kincaid. It tells the story of the author and her younger brother, an outgoing, sexually charged Rastafarian man who is HIV positive and dying from the AIDS virus in his early 30's. The author also shares many memories from her childhood on the island of Antigua, the island on which her mother and brothers reside in the book. The story is slow moving, dull, repetitive and contains many of the author's rambling thoughts on gardening. Some sentences are even up to 156 words long. There is not much of a plot either. This book is not worth the effort to comprehend how the author can be so arrogant and insensitive towards her family.
It is no secret that Devon (the author's brother) dies in this biographical account of the author's family. The book is not separated in chapters, but in two parts: when Devon was alive and after his death. In Part One, it could be said that Jamaica (the author, if Jamaica is her real name the reader does not know, for she says that she changed her name after moving to the U.S. from Antigua) is her brother's hero. When he is in the hospital and dying, she gets him a prescription for AZT, the drug that will not save his life, but may prolong it. Her family express gratitude and she seems proud of her involvement in Devon's treatment. In some cases, she seems more like a mother than a sister. Not a very good mother, but a mother all the same. For example, when Devon gains one pound during his hospital stay, she takes a whole page explaining how proud she was. She was not proud of Devon, she was proud of herself. In her mind, she was the reason that Devon gained that pound.
The author's arrogance and selfishness overpower the positive and negative moments that should bring a family together. Instead, Jamaica proceeds to tear her family apart by separating herself from her mother and Devon. She never makes interactions with her two other brothers, and while she spends a great deal of the book in Antigua, she seems to be wishing that she were back home in Vermont with her husband and children. She also spends a great deal of time repeating how she is not speaking to her mother, how her father, the man who raised her, was not her biological father, or how she feels that her family is not her family at all. She has many different titles for her mother, one of which is "my brother's mother", which is confusing because she also refers to her brothers as "my mother's sons."
One of the most unexplainable things about this book is how the author says, countless times that she did not love her brother. This could be believable because his name (Devon) is not even mentioned until page 99. It is almost as if she must make herself believe that Devon has done something wrong and must be punished so as not to make herself feel guilty for not kissing or hugging him goodbye the last time that she saw him alive. She cared about Devon, and she even goes so far as to say that he loved her.
Jamaica Kincaid wrote this book while sitting atop her high horse in Vermont USA, looking down on her family and ignoring their feelings when they needed her most. Jamaica Kincaid and her writing of My Brother do not deserve prizes or positive recognition. Not only was this novel sloppy and unsatisfying, but the author's view and opinions were unapologetic when any real human being would feel terrible for treating family this way.
Rating:
Summary: Not My Brother, But My Mother's Son
Review: My Brother is a novel by Jamaica Kincaid. It tells the story of the author and her younger brother, an outgoing, sexually charged Rastafarian man who is HIV positive and dying from the AIDS virus in his early 30's. The author also shares many memories from her childhood on the island of Antigua, the island on which her mother and brothers reside in the book. The story is slow moving, dull, repetitive and contains many of the author's rambling thoughts on gardening. Some sentences are even up to 156 words long. There is not much of a plot either. This book is not worth the effort to comprehend how the author can be so arrogant and insensitive towards her family.
It is no secret that Devon (the author's brother) dies in this biographical account of the author's family. The book is not separated in chapters, but in two parts: when Devon was alive and after his death. In Part One, it could be said that Jamaica (the author, if Jamaica is her real name the reader does not know, for she says that she changed her name after moving to the U.S. from Antigua) is her brother's hero. When he is in the hospital and dying, she gets him a prescription for AZT, the drug that will not save his life, but may prolong it. Her family express gratitude and she seems proud of her involvement in Devon's treatment. In some cases, she seems more like a mother than a sister. Not a very good mother, but a mother all the same. For example, when Devon gains one pound during his hospital stay, she takes a whole page explaining how proud she was. She was not proud of Devon, she was proud of herself. In her mind, she was the reason that Devon gained that pound.
The author's arrogance and selfishness overpower the positive and negative moments that should bring a family together. Instead, Jamaica proceeds to tear her family apart by separating herself from her mother and Devon. She never makes interactions with her two other brothers, and while she spends a great deal of the book in Antigua, she seems to be wishing that she were back home in Vermont with her husband and children. She also spends a great deal of time repeating how she is not speaking to her mother, how her father, the man who raised her, was not her biological father, or how she feels that her family is not her family at all. She has many different titles for her mother, one of which is "my brother's mother", which is confusing because she also refers to her brothers as "my mother's sons."
One of the most unexplainable things about this book is how the author says, countless times that she did not love her brother. This could be believable because his name (Devon) is not even mentioned until page 99. It is almost as if she must make herself believe that Devon has done something wrong and must be punished so as not to make herself feel guilty for not kissing or hugging him goodbye the last time that she saw him alive. She cared about Devon, and she even goes so far as to say that he loved her.
Jamaica Kincaid wrote this book while sitting atop her high horse in Vermont USA, looking down on her family and ignoring their feelings when they needed her most. Jamaica Kincaid and her writing of My Brother do not deserve prizes or positive recognition. Not only was this novel sloppy and unsatisfying, but the author's view and opinions were unapologetic when any real human being would feel terrible for treating family this way.
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