Voyage in the Dark

Brassai, Untitled, ca. 1930

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

Anna Morgan is from the West Indies and living in inter-war (or pre-WWI?) London.  Her father is dead, the rest of her family apathetic, and working as a chorus girl.  Her first affair ends in an abortion.  Rhys's style reminds me of Vermeer: the prose is precise, closely observed, and concerned with the things of everyday life.  Anna's passivity in the face of psychological disaster is noteworthy.  She is vacant, empty, ghost-like as she moves through the world.  Her only escape is alcohol when seemingly anything might happen.  She drinks until bedtime and then pulls the covers over her head to dream of her childhood.