Jean Rhys was beautiful and vain.
Reportedly her last words were, "My mascara," though whether or not she
lived to apply the finishing touches, I don't know.Ford Madox Ford "discovered" Jean Rhys in Paris, and took her under his wing. He took her in other ways as well. Rhys's book, Quartet, was based on her experience with Ford and his wife, when she was his mistress. It is a scathing book with a wonderful introduction by Ford himself, which seems neither ironical nor tongue-in-cheek in tone. In any case, he helped launch her career as a writer.
Wide Sargasso Sea is probably Rhys's most famous book. It's a fictional account of the fictional character Berthe Rochester in Jane Eyre -- Mr. Rochester's mad wife, who was born in the West Indies. Rhys herself was born in the West Indies, and died in some cold small beach town in England.
Rhys often wrote about women -- in various stages of their lives -- living hand to mouth in London or Paris. The women are always on the economic edge, needing money, receiving cash and clothes from men, drinking, sitting in cafes, and endlessly walking. The books are very spare, stark, unsentimental, and wonderful.
First page of Wide
Sargasso Sea
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