This is the second Annick Smith book I have read. HOMESTEAD was a wonderful colletion of essays. IN THIS WE ARE NATIVE does not quite come up that standard. The essays here don't really seem to hang together; seem more like a collection of random pieces published earlier in magazines and newspapers. In fact much of the book reads like a magazine, something you might read when there is nothing else at hand. Her descriptions of becoming a film producer and writer are interesting but not particularly profound. The one exception to this, the essay which makes the book worth while, is "I Am Not Thinking: Chronicle of a Father's Dying." It is what the subtitle implies, a record of Smith and her sisters watching their octogenarian father's decline into dementia, with all its sad stays in hospitals and nursing homes. "I am not thinking" are her father's last words, his reply to their inquiry, "What are you thinking?" The mind turns off, turns inward, the arthritic pain-ridden body assumes the final fetal position. This is perhaps one of the most sobering, intimate and eloquent looks at the last days and hours of a loved one I have ever read. Given the right subject, Smith is indeed a gifted writer, always worth reading. ( )