Good Morning, Midnight (Paperback)

from jaclyn_michelle

Literature is rife with supremely talented writers who have an, *ahem*, "fondness" for the bottle: Ernest Hemingway. F. Scott Fitzgerald. And Jean Rhys. A bit about Rhys for those of you new to her work as I was: she was born in 1894 in the West Indies, where she spent her childhood. At sixteen, ...

from Dreesie

English Sasha (Sophia) marries Enno (in 1920s or 30s Amsterdam). Soon they are in Paris, poor and struggling but getting by. She is pregnant and has the baby while he is away at a job. The baby dies shortly, and Enno leaves when he can no longer handle her grief. This novel focuses on her struggl...

from Lukerik

A strange and beautifully written novel, full of atmosphere and character. My favourite bit is the passage beginning "This happened in London, and the kitten belonged to the couple in the flat above - a German hairdresser and his English wife. The kitten had an inferiority complex and persecution...

from

This book is quite dark and reassuringly human. If John Fante's hardboiled POV could be feminine and European it would sound like this. Heartbreak is slipped in between notions banalities so that we hardly know what's hit us. I marvel at her narrative economy and tonal control. It is also a c...

from amerynth

I really enjoy Jean Rhys' work, depressing as it as, and "Good Morning, Midnight" was no exception. In the book, which is apparently semi-autobiographical, a depressed narrator wanders Paris, looking for her next Pernod and wallowing in her problems in a stream-of-consciousness sort of way. I fou...