LA Review of Books on KCRW
Telling Stories
Two important authors kick off book tours here this week, legendary fiction writer Jamaica Kincaid and nonfiction provocateur David Shields.
By Tom Lutz • • 1h 0m ListenNeither
Jamaica Kincaid nor
David Shields tell a story in the classic sense — neither is intent on the classic beginning, middle, and end, the three-act structure that has been considered the standard from Aristotle through Syd Field.
What they are after is something else, a storying of experience that is neither teleological — aimed at a specific climax and denouement — nor simply a postmodern pastiche or chaotic collage. There is a deep structure to each of these books, Kincaid's mythical, poetic, looping narrative in
See Now Then and Shields' circling around the big questions of the relation of literature to life in the his latest, straightforwardly, and yet deceptively, titled
