NYRB Classics discussion

Don't Look Now: Selected Stories of Daphne Du Maurier



Publication Date: October 28, 2008
Pages: 368
Selected and with an introduction by Patrick McGrath.

Daphne du Maurier wrote some of the most compelling and creepy novels of the twentieth century. In books like Rebecca , My Cousin Rachel , and Jamaica Inn she transformed the small dramas of everyday life—love, grief, jealousy—into the stuff of nightmares. Less known, though no less powerful, are her short stories, in which she gave free rein to her imagination in narratives of unflagging suspense.

Patrick McGrath’s revelatory new selection of du Maurier’s stories shows her at her most chilling and most psychologically astute: a dead child reappears in the alleyways of Venice; routine eye surgery reveals the beast within to a meek housewife; nature revolts against man’s abuse by turning a benign species into an annihilating force; a dalliance with a beautiful stranger offers something more dangerous than a broken heart. McGrath draws on the whole of du Maurier’s long career and includes surprising discoveries together with famous stories like “The Birds.” Don’t Look Now is a perfect introduction to a peerless storyteller.