THE KING MY FATHER’S WRECK by...

THE KING MY FATHER’S WRECK by Louis Simpson (Story Line Press: $14.95; 194 pp., illustrated). Using the skills that won him widespread recognition as a poet, Simpson illuminates isolated moments in his life, conveying more information in a few paragraphs than conventional autobiographies do in entire chapters. Although he supplies humorous and unhappy stories about his eccentric Jamaican family, most of the text focuses on the author’s search for his voice. When Simpson stopped trying to be English and accepted his colonial origins, he began to emerge as writer of talent and conviction.