[A] unique prose style ... Reveal[s] new layers of insight and truth ... Not only does Putting Myself Together pick up threads from A Small Place it extends and amplifies the claim forwarded by her turn of the century books ... Kincaid is a master of literary nonfiction’s multifarious forms ... A finely made garden: teeming, various, surprising ... Kincaid’s retrospective satisfies incompletely, provoking both our astonishment and desire for more.
Wry, knowing, and audacious ... Early pieces display her sardonic insights into the ways African Americans were portrayed in popular culture ... Kincaid’s interpretations of her own childhood offer keys to the structures that define her fiction and wider writing ... I hope that Kincaid will write more on [the] complicated pleasure [of gardening]: the intimate dominion of the gardener in her garden ... Uncanny power.
Artfully touches on nature, womanhood, race, and identity in this stunning collection ... Kincaid’s cutting prose shines, and the collection makes for a marvelous account of the author’s life and career. This is a triumph.
