Daphne

As a lover of Daphne Du Maurier's novels ever since adolescence, I approached Justine Picardie's novel starring Daphne as a main character with much trepidation. I wanted it to be good and I was not disappointed. In a successfully satisfying fictional tale based on actual events, Picardie juxtaposes the life of a fifty-something year old Du Maurier at a low point in her life with that of John A. Symington, a former librarian and scholar of the Brontes of Hayworth Parsonage, and a present day almost unnamed (shades of "Rebecca") female graduate student who in pursuing her doctorate uncovers an unsettling component to the Du Maurier/Symington connection. Of course, Picardie relies on her imagination to pull together a story of psychological dependency that rivals one of Du Maurier's own. Du Maurier, acclaimed as a popular bestselling author rather than as a respected mistress of the inner literary circle, decides to write an exploratory account of a lesser-known Bronte--Branwell. Along with his famous sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, Branwell wrote ferociously as a child and adolescent and indeed possessed the same fevered and revered imagination for one isolated in such a desolate environment. Du Maurier discovers that some of his actual life experiences may well have provided the foundation for the Brontes' timeless characters and she wonders if he may have conceived and written some of the poems and story lines attributed to his siblings. In her quest for scholarly acceptance, she decides to pursue this theory and begins a correspondence with the debatably disreputable Symington who as the former librarian at the Parsonage may or may not have removed treasured artifacts that he contrives to sell to the unsuspecting Daphne. Simultaneously, the doctorate candidate struggles with her thesis and her marriage to an older divorced scholar whose fascination with his ex-wife, a celebrated poetess, borders on the psychological back-story to Du Maurier's famous "Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier." Like the second mistress of Manderley, the third and only first person narrator of "Daphne" fights her insecurity and inability to self-identify. Drawn to Du Maurier's fiction like a helpless moth to the flame, she has the foresight to recognize that the inspiration behind some of Du Maurier's most horrific works of psychological suspense were creative brainchildren fashioned by Du Maurier to defend against insecurities brought on by real misunderstood family skeletons and the reliance on a fictive world where the characters are controlled and don't deviate from the author's set course. With great style and insight, Picardie investigates the mind of Du Maurier as she attempts to lay down ghosts of the far and near past. Husband Boy Browning betrays a bewildered Daphne in an extramarital affair, her beloved cousin, Peter, persists disastrously in his desire to shrug off the widely publicized connection with J. M. Barrie of Peter Pan fame (see the

I purchased this book at a lovely little independent bookstore right outside the train station at Kew Gardens. I agree with many of the reviewers here that the story was often unevenly told. But what I found fascinating was the excellent evocation of a moody darkness created by the author-very much so reminiscent of the Bronte novels. The author captures deftly the desire many writers have (here, all three protagonists) to bring to life a forgotten or misunderstood literary figure. As we read about Du Maurier's desire to resurrect an interest in the ignored Bronte sibling, the author, too, sheds light on the complexity of Du Maurier's novels themselves, also often dismissed as second-rate fiction. This novel is quite unique and I highly recommend it.

I began this book with skepticism, thinking Picardie's descriptions of Daphne du Maurier being haunted by Rebecca, the fictional character of her renowned novel of the same name, a bit contrived, but as I read I also researched on-line, and found much of her story (the Rebecca haunting aside perhaps), to be based in truth. It is obvious Picardie did an incredible amount of research for this novel. She appears to have discovered enough new material for a thesis, yet presents this information in a much more interesting fictional form with many parallels in both du Maurier's books and the Bronte books as well. Did anyone else notice the "un-named" narrator, while appearing much like the un-named narrator of "Rebecca", also has many similarities to Jane, in "Jane Eyre", which was, of course, written by Charlotte Bronte, and upon research, with Picardie herself in the way she discovered the letters between du Maurer and Symington, a Bronte scholar? I found the mysteries in this book very intriguing, with the same gothic feel of "Rebecca" and "Jane Eyre". The more familiar you are with du Maurier's and the Bronte's novels, the more you will notice how deftly woven these stories are in "Daphne", and if you enjoyed those books, you will enjoy "Daphne".

In this interesting fact-based novel the author tells the story of how Daphne du Maurier came to write her biography of Branwell Bronte in the early 1960s, The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte. When the novel opens Daphne du Maurier is in her early fifties and is dealing with a host of personal problems. Her husband Tommy has had a breakdown and is temporarily hospitalized. Their relationship is rocky in any case because of Daphne has found out that he had a recent affair. She is portrayed as being rather unstable, she frequently hears the voice of her most famous character, Rebecca, and she can hardly ever bring herself to leave her isolated house, Menabilly. As Daphne becomes enthralled with the Brontes and writing a biography on Branwell, she begins to write letters to J. Alexander Symington who had edited a Collected Works of the Brontes and been the librarian of a large collection. It becomes clear that he has a large collection of original Bronte manuscripts (questionably acquired!) and he offers to sell some of them to her. But since he has planned to write a book himself for many years he only sells her a few unimportant pages, keeping the best back for himself. The story is told from alternating points of view: Daphne du Maurier, Mr. Symington and a young female narrator who is not named. She is a young student who is working on Daphne du Maurier's obsession with the Brontes for her PHD. She discovers the letters between Daphne and Mr. Symington by accident but they end up having quite an impact on her personal life. This novel is packed with facts that make it a fascinating read for any lover of English Literature, Daphne du Maurier or the Brontes. For example, J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan, adopted Daphne's five male cousins after they were orphaned in 1910. (That part of the story was made into a movie a few years ago, Finding Neverland). He was part of the family, Daphne called him "Uncle Jim." And Daphne du Maurier put her diaries of her early life in a bank vault in 1979 with orders that they not be released for fifty years! It's an intriguing story, well written and carefully researched. I recommend it!

Justine Picardie's Daphne is a fictionalized/biographical/literary mystery centering, ostensibly, upon one question: what became of Emily Bronte's notebook of poems that disappeared from the Bronte Society's collections in the mid 20th century? After a few chapters, the reader can guess what happened to the priceless manuscript. What is more difficult to tease out is the novel's underlying meaning or purpose. The narrative is presented from three perspectives and two time periods. One, of course, is that of Daphne DuMaurier as she struggles over the writing of her biography of Branwell Bronte. The second is that of Alex Symington, a retired, less than honest Bronte scholar who cannot come to terms with his professional mistakes. The third is an unnamed, newly married grad student, working on a dissertation involving Daphne's work 40 years later. Sound confusing? It can be. But it is intriguing as well, because the plot and the setting also draw upon the shades of the characters from Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel. Throw some Peter Pan into the mix (the duMaurier family was close to JM Barrie and his adopted "lost boys"), and the plot thickens. I finished this book last night and am still not sure what to make of it. But I did enjoy it and found it reminiscent of the duMaurier novels I've read and loved. Interesting....