SOURCE: A review of The Autobiography of My Mother, in Antioch Review, Vol. 54, No. 3, Summer, 1996, p. 368.

In the following brief review of The Autobiography of My Mother, Keller praises Kincaid's prose, but finds the novel's rage one-dimensional.

In her earlier novels, Annie John and Lucy, Kincaid traced the lives of expatriate Caribbean women, centering on their difficult relationships with their mothers. Mourning the mother's death and repeated loss becomes the life-long project of Xuela, narrator of this third novel [The Autobiography of My Mother], whose widowed father leaves her with a laundry woman, Eunice. After Xuela accidentally breaks a cherished plate, she learns that “Brutality is the only real inheritance and cruelty is sometimes the only thing freely given.” Sent home, she finds her father a bullying policeman. Her stepmother tries to kill her with a poisoned necklace. At 14, Xuela is sent to live with Monsieur LaBatte and...