Smile please an unfinished autobiography 1979 transformation

It’s absolutely fascinating reading about Jean Rhys’ life directly from the source – especially after recently revisiting a group of her novels in this Jean Rhys Reading Week.

So many of her recurrent themes and ideas are laid out bare here for the reader to understand her experiences and how she felt about them in her own words.

Smile please an unfinished autobiography 1979 transformation

Unfortunately, we only get her life story up until her initial time in Paris with her first husband when the chapters turn more into anecdotal sketches or cryptic diary entries for what would have come if Rhys had lived long enough to complete the book.

Nevertheless, reading about Rhys’ early life is utterly compelling. The book has an excellent preface by her editor Diana Athill which explains how difficult the writing/editing process was for Rhys, her perfectionism and the development of this unfinished book in the final years of Rhys’ life.

Apparently at the time there was a lot of speculation surrounding Rhys’ origins and her life in relation to her wor