Lucy A Novel

The coming-of-age story of one of Jamaica Kincaid's most admired creations--newly available in paperback Lucy, a teenage girl from the West Indies, comes to North America to work as an au pair for Lewis and Mariah and their four children. Lewis and Mariah are a thrice-blessed couple--handsome, rich, and seemingly happy. Yet, alomst at once, Lucy begins to notice cracks in their beautiful facade. With mingled anger and compassion, Lucy scrutinizes the assumptions and verities of her employers' world and compares them with the vivid realities of her native place. Lucy has no illusions about her own past, but neither is she prepared to be deceived about where she presently is. At the same time that Lucy is coming to terms with Lewis's and Mariah's lives, she is also unravelling the mysteries of her own sexuality. Gradually a new person unfolds: passionate, forthright, and disarmingly honest. InLucy, Jamaica Kincaid has created a startling new character possessed with adamantine clearsightedness and ferocious integrity--a captivating heroine for our time. Jamaica Kincaidwas born in St. John's, Antigua. Her books includeAt the Bottom of the River, Annie John, Lucy, A Small Place, The Autobiography of My Mother, My Brother, My Garden (Book), Mr. Potter, Talk Stories,a collection ofNew Yorkerwritings, andMy Favorite Plant,a collection of writings on gardens which she edited. In 2000 she was awarded the Prix Feacute;mina Eacute;tranger forMy Brother.She lives with her family in Vermont. Lucy, a teenage girl from the West Indies, comes to North America to work as an au pair for Lewis and Mariah and their four children. Lewis and Mariah are a thrice-blessed couplehandsome, rich, and seemingly happy. Yet, almost at once, Lucy begins to notice cracks in their beautiful faccedil;ade. With mingled anger and compassion, Lucy scrutinizes the assumptions and verities of her employers' world and compares them with the vivid realities of her native place. She has no illusions about her past, and neither is she prepared to be deceived about where she presently is. At the same time that Lucy is coming to terms with Lewis's and Mariah's lives, she is also unravelling the mysteries of her own sexuality. Gradually a new person unfolds: passionate, forthright, and disarmingly honest. InLucy,Jamaica Kincaid has created a startling character possessed with adamantine clearsightedness and ferocious integritya captivating heroine for our time. "Beautifully precise prose . . . It leaves the reader with the unforgettable experience of having met a ferociously honest woman on her own uncompromising terms."Michiko Kakutani,The New York Times "Beautifully precise prose . . . It leaves the reader with the unforgettable experience of having met a ferociously honest woman on her own uncompromising terms."Michiko Kakutani,The New York Times "A graceful, complex narrative that is at the same time about sexual awakening, the construction of identity out of the scraps at hand, the elaborate misunderstandings that can arise from different cultural assumptions, and the essentially harrowing nature of love . . . Kincaid has a deep understanding of shifts in meterological and emotional climates."The Chicago Tribune "Cool and fierce . . . The toughness and elegance of Kincaid's writing is all that one could want . . . Lucy's story is the discovery of all that is available to her. Not only sex, but friendship, treachery, solitude and self-expression."Susanna Moore,The Washington Post Book World "Brilliant . . .Lucyconfirms Ms. Kincaid as a both a daughter of Bronte and Woolf and her own inimitable self."The Wall Street Journal "A furious, broken-hearte

Jamaica Kincaid was born in St. John's, Antigua. Her books include At the Bottom of the River, Annie John, Lucy, A Small Place, The Autobiography of My Mother, My Brother, My Garden (Book), Mr. Potter, Talk Stories, a collection of New Yorker writings, and My Favorite Plant, a collection of writings on gardens which she edited. In 2000 she was awarded the Prix Fémina Étranger for My Brother. She lives with her family in Vermont.

"Beautifully precise prose . . . It leaves the reader with the unforgettable experience of having met a ferociously honest woman on her own uncompromising terms." --The New York Times

"Brilliant . . . Lucy confirms Ms. Kincaid as a both a daughter of Bronte and Woolf and her own inimitable self."-- Wall Street Journal

"A furious, broken-hearted gem of a novel . . . Part of the richness of this book is the way we come to see, as Lucy struggles to do, the connections between those of us who have too much and those who will never have enough--and between 'a sentence for life' (what can't be changed in the self) and that which can be wrestled with and, at least, understood."-- San Francisco Chronicle