The collection consists of ten inter-connected short stories, seven of which were previously published in The New Yorker and The Paris Review between 1978 and 1982.

It was originally released on June 26, 1978, in The New Yorker[3] and examines the struggles of growing up young and female on a post-colonial poor Caribbean island.

The structure consists of a single sentence, punctuated by semi-colons, detailing the advice imparted from mother to daughter.

This piece can be read as a companion to "In the Night"[5] since it seems to be a mother's account of life before the birth of her child, responding to the final dilemma raised in “In the Night.” The mother here takes the opportunity to explain to her daughter some problematic issues while the daughter, an older child, echoes her jealousy and sense of neglect over the birth of her younger siblings.

“Holidays”[1] follows the young woman through her quest for independence as she leaves home to take on a job as an au pair for an American couple.

[7] Kincaid herself had left her island home in Antigua at age 17 to take on a similar position working for an affluent family in Scarsdale, New York.

Absorbed in the blackness, cut off from the real world, she feels ‘annihilated’ and ‘erased,’ unable to point to herself ‘and say I’.

The young female narrator is now coming to terms with her identity and finally resolves to accept and embrace herself and her world.

“The girl finds direction and substance, not so much in her visionary flights as in familiar objects: books, a chair, a table, a bowl of fruit, a bottle of milk, a flute made of wood.

[11] The stories are told from the perspective of an Afro-Caribbean girl and cover such themes as the mother-daughter relationship, the potency and beauty of nature, the male-female divide, among others.

At the Bottom of the River is deeply steeped with this sort of power struggle[2] particularly from the perspective of a child and how she feels powerless over her environment or how the adult seeks to enforce control over, not only her actions, but also emotions.

The collection is also potent in highlighting the challenges children face growing up particularly in situations of poverty and the various demands that adults make of them.

[7] Perhaps one of the most pervasive themes is the search for identity, as a child, a teenager, a female and independent woman, an Afro-Caribbean, fighting against marginalization and alienation.