Good Morning, Midnight

Brassai, Untitled, ca. 1930

By Jean Rhys, New York, WW Norton & Co., 1985

My favorite of Rhy's early novels.  Sasha Jensen is her most articulate heroine.  She is in her late 30s or early 40s and looks within herself to understand life's pain.  Sasha is sloshed but doesn't indulge in self-pity.  This novel is about how tenuous human connections are and the unrelenting grind of poverty.  The strength of Rhy's work is that she focuses on the interior landscape of her heroines.  The outside events in her novels are fairly uniform, so she turns her attention to the feelings and motivations of her characters.  Her characters are Bohemian lounge-abouts, but sensitive and perceptive too.  

Good Morning, Midnight!
I'm coming home,
Day got tired of me--
How could I of him?

Sunshine was a sweet place,
I'd like to stay--
But Morn didn't want me--now--
So good night, Day!

Emily Dickinson