Jean Rhys: Life and Work

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In 1973 critic Al Alvarez called her the best living English novelist, and in the same year PW reported a ``rush'' on her novels, among them Quartet, Voyage in the Dark and her masterpiece, Wide Sargasso Sea. Rhys (1890-1979) was an odd bundle of qualities that included narcissism, paranoia, charm, self-pity, self-destructiveness, rage against men and a general wildness of temperament that owed something to the steamy island of Dominica where she was born. But as British freelance writer Angier amply shows in this hefty critical biography--where fact and insight lie cheek by jowl--she was adept at ``distilling truth out of evasion and art out of pain.'' For her (and her heroines), loving meant losing, a lesson acquired through several marriages and passionate affairs, the most formative, from the literary point of view, with Ford Madox Ford. Perhaps this impressive study will trigger another rush on a poetic novelist now suffering a mild neglect. Photos. (June)

Library Journal

Rhys (1890-1979), author of several novels and short stories, drew on her life experience as a colonial exile from the British West Indies who became a chorus girl, bohemian, and writer living by her wits in London and Paris. Angier (who previously published a much shorter biography, Jean Rhys , Viking, 1986) painstakingly links Rhys's difficult life to events and characters in her fiction. Angier's exhaustive study is exacting, though not without speculation. She pays special attention to Rhys's autobiographical tendencies, especially in light of her heroines and their alienation. This intimate yet scholarly work is much more than simple biography, providing a detailed and well-documented analysis of the writings. Recommended for academic and large public libraries.-- Janice Braun, Medical Historical Lib., Yale Univ.

Booknews

The authorized account of the legendary British novelist's life (1890-1979), from her childhood in the British West Indies, to her schooling in England, to her time in Paris in the 1920s where she became involved with Ford Madox Ford, through her three marriages and, finally, her self-destructive alcoholism, revealing how Rhys had the power to transform her own disturbing life into art. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)