In Search of Annie Drew

There is perhaps no other person who has been so often and obsessively featured in any writers canon as Jamaica Kincaids mother, Annie Drew. In this provocative new book, Daryl Dance argues that everything Kincaid has written, regardless of its apparent theme, actually relates to Kincaids efforts to free herself from her mother, whether her subject is ostensibly other family members, her home nation, a precolonial world, or even Kincaid herself.A devoted reader of Kincaids work, Dance had long been aware of the authors love-hate relationship with her mother, but it was not until reading the 2008 essay ""The Estrangement"" that Dance began to ponder who this woman named Annie Victoria Richardson Drew really was. Dance decided to seek the answers herself, embarking on a years-long journey to unearth the real Annie Drew. Through interviews and extensive research, Dance has pieced together a fuller, more contextualized picture in an attempt to tell Annie Drews story. Previous analyses of Kincaids relationship with her mother have not gone beyond the writers own carefully orchestrated and sometimes contrived portraits of her. In Search of Annie Drew offers an alternate reading of Kincaids work that expands our understanding of the object of such passionate love and such ferocious hatred, an ordinary woman who became an unforgettable literary figure through her talented daughters renderings.