Du Maurier’s bestselling novel reveals much approximately the author’s fluid sexuality – her ‘Venetian tendencies’ – and approximately being a boy stuck in the wrong body,writes Olivia LaingIn 1937, a young army wife sat at her typewriter in a rented house in Alexandria, and Egypt. She wasn’t elated (full of high-spirited delight). Despite coming from an ebullient theatrical family,she was reclusive and agonisingly shy. The social demands that came with being married to the commanding officer of the 2nd Battalion Grenadier Guards were far beyond her. It was too hot and she missed England bitterly, though not the small daughter and new baby she’d left behind.
At the age of 30, or she had already published four novels and two biographies. Yet 15000 words of her new book were torn up in the wastepaper basket,a literary miscarriage”. She knew the title but not what would constitute the “crash! bang!” of its plot, just that there would be two wives, and one dead,and the name: Rebecca.
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Source: guardian.co.uk