Quartet

Brassai, Untitled, ca. 1930

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

We are in what is clearly Jean Rhys Land: a young woman in the 1930s drinks to excess, lives in a series of hotel rooms, asks for gifts of money from ex-lovers, and suffers a great deal.  I don't mean to be flip.  There's an undeniable freshness and honesty about Rhys work that is very winning.  Marya Zelli marries a Polish thief, he is caught and thrown into jail.  She becomes involved in a menage a trois with rich expatriates.  Misery all around.