Forgotten Books: DON'T LOOK NOW - Daphne du Maurier

Another contribution to Pattinase's Friday's Forgotten Books theme.

I had quite a Daphne du Maurier (1907-989) year in 1975 when I began my little green book of titles. I was on a bus from Katmandhu to London for nearly 3 months of it, but there's a heap of du Maurier's altogether so perhaps I was carrying them with me.

The first listed is DON'T LOOK NOW.
John and Laura have come to Venice to try and escape the pain of their young daughter's death. But when they encounter two old women who claim to have second sight, they find that, instead of laying their ghosts to rest, they become caught up in a train of increasingly strange and violent events.

DON'T LOOK NOW is a novella (may have even been the title story of a book of short stories), a quick read, and you may remember the film with Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland. For me it was also the case of "recognisable" setting and I visited Venice twice that year.

For me it certainly was the beginning of a Daphne du Maurier reading binge.
THE PARASITES.
VANISHING CORNWALL.
JAMAICA INN.
THE PROGRESS OF JULIUS.
THE FLIGHT OF THE FALCON.
THE GLASS BLOWERS.
RULE BRITANNIA.
all in one year.
I also visited Jamaica Inn - in fact had a friend working there.

Daphne du Maurier was a prodigious writer over four decades, a writer of short stories rather than the novels. I was really into short stories in those days - the year before I had read the complete short stories of Somerset Maughan. I think perhaps they both signify a slightly "gothic" phase in my reading life.

Did you ever read du Maurier? Check the list at Fantastic Fiction and tell me which ones you remember best .