The Doll: Short StoriesBy Daphne Du Maurier, Virago, $24.99.
Published posthumously, these 13 forgotten short stories — penned by famed Jamaica Inn author Daphne Du Maurier, most of them when she was in her 20s — make for riveting, if somewhat shocking reading.
The eponymousThe Dollis the scene-stealer: a macabre tension-filled tale of a man discovering that the girl he loves is spurning his advances because she lives with a life-sized mechanical male doll.
Five of these stories were unearthed by a lifetime Du Maurier devotee and bookseller, the collection reveals a raw (yet by no means naive) sexual side to the creator of haunting tales that led to film classics such as Hitchcock’sThe Birds.
The disturbingEast Windis set on a remote island where inhabitants intermarry and live “blindly, happily, like children, content to grope in the dark…”.
FrustrationandWeek-Endreveal skilfully cynical depictions of love (and a wedding ring) slipping down the drain.
What is remarkable and exciting is that mature-headed DM was so ahead of her years and time. Depraved gothic satyrs and maudlin reeling sailors leer temptingly from the pages, alongside conservative courting couples, country lanes, motor cars and the altogether deceptive world of potted meat.
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