After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie | 
pickI cannot say this is a feel good story but wow, it‘s intense and beautifully written. I kept thinking about the time it was written and how the protagonist would have felt and been treated 😢
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pickI cannot say this is a feel good story but wow, it‘s intense and beautifully written. I kept thinking about the time it was written and how the protagonist would have felt and been treated 😢
pickJean Rhys, the writer of discarded women. The novella begins as Julia must figure out her next step. Her most recent gentleman/companion has ceased payment on her hotel. On a whim she returns to England where she faces various indignities. Julia wanted more than respectable impoverishment, but in her 30s, as her beauty fades, is paying the price. Her scraping by is hard to read but this is a sharp indictment on the coldness of society. Rhys's 👇
"She was crying now because she remembered that her life had been a long succession of humiliations and mistakes and pains and ridiculous efforts. Everybody's life was like that."
No toxic positivity here.
pickBen of doomantidote and Shawn the Book Maniac discuss After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie by Jean Rhys
No spoilers until 20:00!
doomantidote: https://youtube.com/user/doomantidote
After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie by Jean Rhys
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/45894066-after-leaving-mr-mackenzie?ac=1&fro...
https://youtu.be/y3g_ffvvTOc
Intro
Weekly Highlights
After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie by Jean Rhys
We, Jane by Aimee Wall
The Christmas Tree by Jennifer Johnston
Shout-outs:
"The houses opposite had long rows of windows, and it seemed to Julia that at each window a woman sat staring mournfully, like a prisoner, straight into her bedroom."
"One of the customers was bawling at the waiter that the soup was muck, and the other diners were listening with shocked but rather smirking expressions, like good little boys who were going to hear the bad little boy told off."
"The girls were perky and pretty, but it was strange how many of the older women looked drab and hopeless, with timid, hunted expressions. They looked ashamed of themselves, as if they were begging the world in general not to notice that they were women or to hold it against them."
"Her eyes were very sad; they seemed to be asking a perpetual question."
Oh look, casual anti-Semitism. 😒
These February book covers are brilliant, lovely, and I want to own every one!
https://lithub.com/the-16-best-book-covers-of-february-2/
pickJulia Martin's lover has just left her. Julia is an independent spirit, unusual for her time, but has limited options financially. She has relied on lovers for support over the years but sees difficulties ahead as she is growing older. Rhys examines not just Julia's plight but that of middle class women circa 1930 who lived on the edge of poverty. http://cannonballread.com/2016/09/sometimes-its-hard-to-be-a-woman/
