See Now Then A Novel

In See Now ThenJamaica Kincaid has created a modern myth about a universal, contemporary subject: a marriage in crisis, a fracturing family. Mr. and Mrs. Sweet and their two children, Heracles and Persephone, live in the Shirley Jackson house in Vermont. Mr. Sweet, a frustrated composer, hails from New York's upper echelons, where women are always condescending to their maids and cabs are always hard to get on upper Fifth Avenue; Mrs. Sweet arrived in the country on a banana boat, chose yellow countertops, and likes to read books no one else cares about. Kincaidthrough the heroic children Heracles and Persephoneevokes the bitterness of love gone sour and turned to contempt, the intensity of the bonds between parents and children, and the profound unknowability of all individuals. Since the publication of her first short story collection At the Bottom of the River, nominated for a PEN/Faulkner Award for fictionKincaid has demonstrated a unique and piercing talent for seeing beyond, seeing through, the surface of things, which has made her one of our essential writers. In See Now Then, her powerfully original style has produced a work of searing originality and insight.

Jamaica Kincaid was born in St. John’s, Antigua. Her books include At the Bottom of the River, Annie John, Lucy, The Autobiography of My Mother, My Brother, and Mr. Potter, all published by FSG. She lives with her family in Vermont.

“Writers wish for perfect readers, but readers wish even harder for perfect writers and rarely find them . . . Jamaica Kincaid is about as perfect as it's possible to be.” —Carolyn See, The Washington Post