Annie John (Unabridged Audiobook - Read by the Author) [Audio Cassette]

Jamaica Kincaid (Author), Charline Spektor (Editor), Cynthia Krupak (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 1994

Annie John, the headstrong, brilliant heroine of Jamaica Kincaid's bestseller is a child of Antigua but an adolescent of the whole world. Her passage into young adulthood -- the tumultuous love of her mother and their gradual separation is a story that will speak to listeners of all ages. Internationally acclaimed author, Jamaica Kincaid, has written a true contemporary classic, this generation's to Catcher in the Rye

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Jamaica Kincaid beautifully delineates hatred and fear, because she knows they are often a step away from love and obsession. At the start of Annie John, her 10-year-old heroine is engulfed in family happiness and safety. Though Annie loves her father, she is all eyes for her mother. When she is almost 12, however, the idyll ends and she falls into deep disfavor. This inexplicable loss mars both lives, as each grows adept at public falsity and silent betrayal. The pattern is set, and extended: "And now I started a new series of betrayals of people and things I would have sworn only minutes before to die for." In front of Annie's father and the world, "We were politeness and kindness and love and laughter." Alone they are linked in loathing. Annie tries to imagine herself as someone in a book--an orphan or a girl with a wicked stepmother. The trouble is, she finds, those characters' lives always end happily. Luckily for us, though not perhaps for her alter ego, Kincaid is too truthful a writer to provide such a finale. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Review

Touching and familiar, it could be happening to any of us, anywhere, any time, any place. -- The New York Times

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Audio Cassette: 3 pages
• Publisher: Airplay Audio Publishing (December 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1885608012
• ISBN-13: 978-1885608017
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (78 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,781,422 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Jamaica Kincaid's works include, Mr Potter, The Autobiography of My Mother, and My Brother, a memoir. She lives in Bennington, Vermont.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A novel of adolescent alienation and familial separation., March 28, 2002

By 

David J. Gannon (San Antonio, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Annie John: A Novel (Paperback)

Annie John tells the tale of a family's disintegration. Told from the perspective of Annie, 10 when the novel starts and in young adulthood by its end, the story revolves around Annie's transformation from an adoring, obedient child to rebellious, hardheaded outcast within her own home. It's a classic mother-daughter love-hate tale where balance is somehow lost and animosity and divisiveness come to rule the day.

The story is rendered in a series of 8 chapters that effectively amount to a sequence of interrelated short stories each of which highlights and incident and/or event that stands as a critical turning point in the mother-daughter relationship.

The story is set in Antigua. This, along with the prosaic quality of Annie's narrative voice, add an element of the exotic to the story. It also provides the basis for the inflexible social structure that locks the combatants into rigid stances from which, ultimately, they cannot extricate themselves.

The book is well written and progresses in a stately and unrushed manner. It's not the sort of book you pick up and can't put down. In point of fact, I found I tended to put it down after every chapter-the short story effect lent itself to such a reading style and, as each chapter amounts to a major point in the story, that gave me a chance to assimilate and assess the story tot hat point. I found the book intellectually stimulating but I can easily see how someone not really gripped by the story could call this work boring, as quite a few previous reviewers have.

On the whole I found it a unique and interesting reading experience that, in retrospect, ought to have been somewhat depressing, yet wasn't.

On the whole, an intriguing book.

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars maybe only adults can bear to look back, July 3, 1998

By 

Jan Priddy - See all my reviews

This review is from: Annie John: A Novel (Paperback)

Annie John is about a daughter in the throes of conflict with her mother. She is finding out about mortality and sexuality and that her mother regards her as rival for her father's attention.

When a group of high school students read this book in my class eight years ago, the boys in the back row all whined about reading "girl stuff." Presumedly they're older now and would have some interest in the struggles of their mothers, daughters, sisters, and lovers... not to mention themselves. After all, don't we all go through a period of gaining vision and resenting it simultaneously?

I was caught with the opening scene, Annie John sees people dressed in black and some in white bobbing in the distance. What is it? she asks her mother, who tells her it must be the funeral of a child since such burials are always held in the morning. "Until then, I had not known that children could die."

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing novel, January 15, 2000

By 

Kris (t'dad) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Annie John: A Novel (Paperback)

I read this book 3 years ago and it didn't really affect me very much, however, I had to study it for school this year and I now I love it. Annie's sudden detatchment from her mother and the effect that this abrupt change has on her home life and her entire concept of love, is fascinating.She moves from a world centered on her mother and love to a world of lies,hostility, pain and betrayal. The 'black thing' is decribed in such intricate detail that one is able to actually feel the pain and hate that annie feels towards her mother. Her struggle to free herself from her past and the heartbreaking walk to the jetty provide one with food for thought.