Smile Please

Jean Rhys died before finishing this account of her own life, and it was assembled and published afterward. It opens on Dominica, the Caribbean island where she spent her early years, and follows her path from there.

The narrative then moves to England, where Rhys survived on small, shabby rooms, drink, and very little else. It ends with her years in Paris alongside her first husband, the Dutch-born writer Jean Lenglet.

Rhys is remembered as the novelist behind Wide Sargasso Sea and Good Morning, Midnight, and this book preserves her own version of the life that shaped that work.