Talk Stories is a collection of Jamaica Kincaid's original writing for The New Yorker's "Talk of the Town," composed during the time when she first came to the United States from Antigua, from 1978 to 1983. Kincaid found a unique voice, at once in sync with William Shawn's tone for the quintessential elite insider's magazine, and (though unsigned) all her own-wonderingly alive to the ironies and screwball details that characterized her adopted city. She meets Miss Jamaica, visiting from Kingston, and watches Tammy Wynette autograph a copy of Lattimore's Odyssey; she learns the worlds of publishing and partying, of fashion and popular music, and how to call cauliflower a crudite. The book also records Kincaid's development as a young writer-the newcomer who sensitively records her impressions here takes root to become one of our most respected authors.