This is a bleak novel about precarious survival in big cities, perfect for this time of year. Despite the bleakness, the beautiful prose of Rhys carries you through this narrative incredibly quickly. This is her second novel from 1931.
Julia is in Paris, after being thrown off by her latest man. Eking out a precarious existence on a meagre allowance, she spontaneously decides to try her luck in London. She’s got family and ex-lovers there – maybe they’ll help?
But her sister is not very welcoming, her wealthy uncle neither, and none of her lovers, past and present, take more than a passing interest in her. The dullness of London and the grim rooms she can scarce afford make her feverish with unhappiness. Then there’s her mother, paralysed and incapacitated, with her sister caring for her.
I love the switching points of view: Julia’s looks and her need for money are refracted through others’ eyes. Pitiful desperation marks interactions that bubble with barely hidden contempt and resentment.
A beautiful tale of precariousness, respectability, and suffering. How much responsibility do we have to help others? What happens when someone’s suffering becomes de jour?
Apparently this book is autobiographical and continues the narrative of her first novel, Quartet, where you get the love story and the break up, whereas this picks things up a little later. Good Morning Midnight shows the final social descent of the trilogy. Her affair with Ford Madox Ford inspired some of the scenes with Mackenzie, as did her mother’s death and her family’s bourgeois disapproval of her Left Bank life.
One word: unflinching.
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