HW 24 - Illness & Dying Book, Part 3

My Brother by Jamaica Kincaid published by Farrar Straus and Giroux in 1997

The book I wrote titled My Brother is a biography about how I handled my brother’s struggle with HIV. Throughout his time of being ill I realized new things about myself as well as my family, specifically my mother. My brother eventually died from AIDS, which allowed me to form deeper thoughts about what he meant to me. Through my writing I am indecisive about many of my thoughts, as well as repetitive. I discus my feelings about Antigua and the significance of cultural and physical differences between the Antigua style of health methods and American style of heath methods.

“…the stunted passion fruit-for it was that, stunted, unable to go on, unable to go back, it could not yet die” pg 127 –Devon was like the passion fruit he was “Stunted” and couldn’t go forward to a new part of his life and he couldn’t go backwards because the things prior to his sickness led to him contracting HIV.

“I had been thinking, my brother had just died, my brother has died, but to her I said, as simply as this, “My brother died” and she said as simply as this “I know.” Pg159 – I enjoyed how Jamaica states that saying her brother is dead is simple when she knows it’s simple to say but complicated to process. And she also conveys that the woman’s response was simple which I would have assumed would have been an insult if Jamaica didn’t say the same thing about herself.

“…a plastic bag like the ones given to customers when they buy an expensive suit at a store that carries expensive clothing.” Pg 178 –this reminded me of how Devon was not very rich in his life and neither was his family, I therefore think that the purpose for Jamaica mentioning how the bag looks like one from a fancy store means that he finally found his fortune, even if it was in death.

I enjoyed this book more at the beginning then I did the end, the end seemed way too repetitive. It could be that the “action” (of the brother’s death) had already happened in the middle of the book that the rest of the writing felt a little useless. At times I thought how it was nice to have such a detailed account of a specific individual’s experience, Jamaica really wrote with depth and honesty.