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I Used to Live Here Once

The Haunted Life of Jean Rhys

Miranda Seymour author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:HarperCollins Publishers

Published:25th May '23

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I Used to Live Here Once cover

This biography offers an intimate look at Jean Rhys, exploring her life, struggles, and the profound impact of her Caribbean roots in I Used to Live Here Once.

In I Used to Live Here Once, the life of Jean Rhys is explored in depth, revealing the complexities of her experiences as a writer and a person. Rhys, known for her acclaimed novel Wide Sargasso Sea, is portrayed as an obsessive and troubled genius whose Caribbean childhood profoundly influenced her work. The biography takes readers through her years as an exile in 1920s Paris and her later life in England, where heartbreak, poverty, and personal turmoil shaped her literary voice. The narrative sheds light on the 'Rhys woman'—a character often mistaken for a self-portrait, embodying vulnerability, wit, and anger.

The author delves into the seventeen years Rhys spent on the remote Caribbean island of Dominica, a period that had a lasting impact on her psyche and her writing. Despite the challenges Rhys faced, including addiction and tumultuous relationships, she is depicted as a fiercely independent artist rather than a mere victim of her circumstances. This biography draws from Rhys's memoir, Smile Please, and her body of work, providing a comprehensive understanding of her life and legacy.

Seymour's portrayal of Rhys is both luminous and penetrating, revealing a multifaceted individual who was powerful, cultured, and often darkly humorous. Through this engaging biography, readers are invited to discover a new perspective on Jean Rhys, one that highlights her strength and complexity in a way that has not been done before. I Used to Live Here Once is a compelling tribute to a remarkable literary figure.

‘This is a first-class life and a rollicking read. Seymour skilfully interweaves the autographical stories and novels with the people and fortunes in Rhys’s crazily adventurous life. She’s warmly sympathetic to the young ingénue of 17, and only slightly less so to the old bat of 87. She’s also the only Rhys biographer who travelled to Dominica to see what it was about the island — its colours, smells, conflicted history and voodoo sorcery — that haunted Rhys all her days but fired her imagination. The result is close to a masterpiece’
John Walsh, Sunday Times

‘Her intimate and insightful biography … certainly reads like a novel. [Seymour] is a bewitching writer … gives us Rhys in all her glory’
Laura Freeman, The Times

‘The superb achievement of Miranda Seymour’s painstaking and compassionate new biography is to dispel forever the idea that Rhys was simply a naïve chronicler of her own experiences … in terms of sheer technique, she was a virtuoso’
Spectator

‘[A] slyly compelling new biography of Jean Rhys … The narrative has the tension of a thriller as Rhys struggles to finish Wide Sargasso Sea
Rachel Cooke, Observer

‘Seymour,a masterful biographer… tells her story with empathy, precision and a keen eye for the telling detail’LA Times, A Book of the Year 2022

‘An exhaustive, definitive ride around both the idea and the reality of Jean Rhys … Seymour addresses a writer and woman who is at once self-absorbed and thoughtful, sardonic and sensitive’
Siobhán Kane, Irish Times

‘An absolute belter of a biography . . . don’t read if you are afraid of monsters’ Marina Hyde, Favourite Reads of 2022

‘A very impressive piece of work. A long and tangled life most authoritatively pieced together. I was completely absorbed’
Michael Frayn, author of Noises Off

ISBN: 9780008353285

Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 34mm

Weight: 390g

448 pages