Talk Stories - by Jamaica Kincaid (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Jamaica Kincaid's collected writings for The New Yorker's "Talk of the Town" record her first impressions of snobbish, mobbish New York.

Talk Stories is a collection of Jamaica Kincaid's original writing for The New Yorker's "Talk of the Town," composed during the time when she first arrived in the United States from Antigua, from 1978 to 1983. Kincaid developed a unique voice, both in sync with William Shawn's tone for the quintessential elite magazine and (though unsigned) all her own--wonderingly alive to the ironies and screwball details that characterized her adopted city. The book also reflects Kincaid's development as a young writer--the newcomer who sensitively records her impressions here takes root to become one of our most respected authors.

Review Quotes

"I recently reread all eighty-five of Kincaid's 'Talk' stories, and I was surprised by what I found in them--surprised, delighted, and, most of all, embarrassed for my younger self... It's taken me a few years to appreciate that there are times when it's enough for writing, like sleep and sex, to exist just for the pleasure it gives." --Craig Seligman, The Threepenny Review

"From the collection's first piece ... the reader is snared by the simplicity, directness and unvarnished truthfulness of formidable talent already realized." --Margaret Fichtner, Miami Herald

"Fresh, risky, improvisational and hard-to-categorize writing, the fruit of a remarkable understanding between a seasoned editor and a nervy new writer, is rare and precious, and best appreciated here, where each provocative essay plays against the others, no longer anonymous." --Donna Seaman, Chicago Tribune

About the Author