Rebecca .
Daphne du Maurier. Harper Paperbacks. 1997.
Book review by Tracey
I recently made a new foray into my favorite Goodwill, looking for a little
nostalgia. I had a good deal of success, finding this title and another,
both of which had made an impact on me as a teen reader. Rebecca
is the strange story of a young woman of no material means who falls in
love with an older widower. The reader is almost immediately made aware
of a mystery concerning the death of Mr. deWinter’s first wife.
This does not stop our heroine from trading her boring and embarrassing
job as companion to an odious woman whose only goal in life is to meet
and gossip about the wealthy and famous for a real role as one of the
wealthy and famous. As the second Mrs.
deWinter, this young woman enters a world she was not brought up for and
embroils herself in the mystery of the larger than life first wife, Rebecca.
The story is a little slow and careful, written in a deliberate style
to build suspense. The main character really has no personality. In fact,
I don’t believe her name is even mentioned. She is full of fear
and uncertainty about every aspect of her life, a perfect foil for Rebecca,
who we read was the best at everything she had ever done.
If you like a good suspense novel that doesn’t read too fast, you
may like this book, which was published in 1938. I was more taken with
it as a teen, I find, but as a forty-something I was just more impatient
with the fears and lack of resolve our main character portrayed.
See also Mrs.
deWinter.
Tracey.
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