Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

 

Rebecca

by Daphne Du Maurier

Everyone seems to have read this book in the last year, owing no doubt to its film adaptation remake starring Armie Hammer. I figured I would give it a go and see if it lived up to the hype.

Rebecca is the story of an unnamed young woman who marries the mysterious and wealthy Maxim de Winter and is swept away to his English mansion Manderley. Maxim's previous wife Rebecca died a few months before this second marriage for Maxim, and the book chronicles the new Mrs. de Winter's struggle with Rebecca's memory. Mrs. de Winter's real first name is never revealed, an interesting and obvious choice for Du Maurier to make, causing her to be a shadow, a ghost herself living at Manderley, always imagining conversations and scenarios, afraid to truly live herself.

She is set against her husband's stoic silence and the indomitable housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, who would love nothing more than to sabotage the marriage and to ruin Maxim's life. Through the story we learn that Rebecca's death was more than just a tragic accident and that she was not the woman everyone thought her to be, leading Mrs. de Winter and Maxim to discover her dark secret as they attempt to save their own hides against accusations by Mrs. Danvers and Rebecca's cousin Mr. Favell.

This was a really good book with well-crafted characters and a setting so stifling one feels their collar too tight while reading. The prose is elegant, yet stiff in a way that matches the mood of the book. The second half of the story really amps up the suspense aspect touted on the cover. Would I have minded more suspense? No, I would have welcomed it. I felt, at the end, that the story could continue to even more development and more suspense as Mrs. Danvers takes her revenge on Manderley and disappears into the night.

A great read, for sure. I give it 4 stars.