A View Of The Empire at Sunset

Caryl Phillips Vintage €12.95

Phillips and the late Jean Rhys both grew up in the West Indies, and both have written fiction about characters dreamt up by the Brontës. In this latest novel, he deepens the connection by making Rhys his heroine. It’s a moody portrait that moves from her idyllic island youth to school in England, and the tawdriness of her life as a chorus girl, a stockbroker’s mistress, an unsettled wife and an absent mother. It ends well before her literary triumph. There’s much booze drunk and class-tinged abuse endured by this daughter of a Welshman and a white Creole. A richly atmospheric tale.