This book features revolves around three characters, these being Daphne Du Maurier during the late 1950s, when she is facing problems in her personal life, and struggling to write a biography of Branwell Bronte (brother of Charlotte, Emily and Anne); Bronte scholar J. Alex Symington, who like Daphne, is fascinated by the life of Branwell Bronte, and who corresponds with her about the Branwell biography; and an unnamed young woman in the present day, who is preoccupied with Daphne Du Maurier, and who is unhappily married to a much older man, and is haunted by thoughts of his first wife Rachel.
The book is eloquently written, and Picardie clearly meticulously researched her subject. It is something of a literary mystery, as Du Maurier attempts to prove whether or not some of Branwell’s work was credited to Charlotte or Emily Bronte, and it also becomes apparent that Symington’s career with the Bronte society ended in disgrace as he was accused of stealing Bronte manuscripts during his time as curator of the Bronte Museum. This is all based on real life events, and did make for fascinating reading. Although it is a fictionalised account of this time in Daphne Du Maurier’s life, her problematic marriage, and her desire to be seen by the critics who dismiss her talents, as more than just a best selling novelist were all too real. For his part, Symington was not a particularly likeable character, and as his story is told, he is revealed to be an unreliable source of information. For all that however, it was hard not to have some sympathy with him, trapped as he was by his misdeeds in the past, which he is able to justify to himself but to nobody else.
I also enjoyed the modern day narrative, which is the only one told in the first person. There are some none too subtle similarities with Du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’ – the unnamed narrator being the timid second wife of her older and more worldly husband, the obsession with her husband’s first wife, and the narrator’s feelings of loneliness and isolation. In fact, this entire narrative could have been cut out of the book, without it affecting the stories of Du Maurier and Symington, but it made for enjoyable reading, particularly where the narrator started to research Du Maurier and her connection with the Brontes.
I would say that some prior knowledge of both Daphne Du Maurier’s books and the works of Charlotte and Emily Bronte would be advantageous before reading this book, as several references are made to them. (incidentally, Anne Bronte barely gets a mention in this book, although she was herself an acclaimed novelist.) Reading it certainly made me want to discover more about tDu Maurier’s life.
Overall, I found the book absorbing, but the individual crisis that each main character is facing made it a dispiriting read at times. That said, I would still highly recommend it for Bronte and (especially) Du Maurier enthusiasts.
(For more information about Daphne Du Maurier, please click here.)
Between the Pages 