Jamaica and Me: The Story of an Unusual Friendship

New York: Random House, 1998. First edition. Stated. Hardcover. Good/Very good. xxv, [1], 187, [3] pages. Signed by author. Front board has some wear and weakness. Linda Atkins was born in Boston, Massachusetts. She is a practicing psychoanalyst, and she has won several awards for her professional publications. A psychoanalyst tells of the special interest she took in an 8-year-old homeless child who had been found living with crack addicts in the New York City subways during the 1980s. After spending time with her when others had just about given up, Linda Atkins placed the girl with a foster mother, but then lost track of her. Jamaica and Me, the candid story of Linda Atkins's experiences with a single endangered child in New York City - a story in which she assesses her own actions and motives with as much honesty as she applies to the welfare system - sounds an alarm about the state of children in need all over this country, and it asks us to acknowledge their existence and to respond to their heartbreaking predicaments. Jamaica has already lost her mother (she never knew her father), has slept in New York subway tunnels, and lived in a welfare hospital. Atkins, who volunteers at the hospital, feels especially drawn to the loner Jamaica and begins to take her on outings, to neighborhood parks and then for weekend visits at home. Linda teaches the determined, enthusiastic Jamaica to ride a bike - but the bad times threaten to prevail: Jamaica often lies, steals from Linda's house, and has outbursts of violence.