Springcleaning – Book 12 “The Rendezvous and other stories” by Daphne Du Maurier

I frequently post that I am not a fan of short stories but I do read some collections of them which I enjoy. The Rendezvous and Other Stories is a collection of her early shorter fiction by Daphne Du Maurier. I read her best known book Rebecca years ago and thought it very creepy and I have also read My Cousin Rachel (see here for review) which had gloriously ambiguous characters. This collection has been on my to-be-read pile for years. I acquired it from a subscription I have where I receive a number of second hand books each month – they are chosen from genres that I enjoy but the books are often ones that I would not pick up for myself. I have avoided reading it, I think, because it’s short stories but haven’t disposed of it because I thought that I liked the author. Anyway, this challenge has caused me to get down to reading these stories and I enjoyed them, as I probably could have anticipated.

There are fourteen stories in the book and the majority of them are not very long. In most of them the characters are not always very nice, there are some cheaters, some criminals and some people who are just cruel. These are stories about people and their motivations. In a couple of the stories, probably the ones I liked least, there is a hint of the supernatural. At least one has a joyful ending and in a few of them, but not all, the nastier characters get their just deserts. The characters are mostly British and middle class in the culture of pre-WW2 Britain and just after the war.

Subjects include the unexpected death by suicide of an ordinary woman, a well-known author who makes assumptions which turn out to be false, a woman who goes out for a walk and returns to find her life totally changed, a poor couple whose dreams come true, a wartime ship which is guided home by a strange companion, a woman who cons others who is found out by chance, and a man who is thought of as dull who turns out to be anything but. I enjoyed all the stories and a few stayed with me. They don’t all have a twist but many of them are quirky and unexpected.

I enjoyed this collection far more than I had expected to and I think that the stories were beautifully crafted and very effective. This is not an author whose works I collect so I shall take this book, which is in excellent condition, to Oxfam and hope that it finds a sympathetic new reader.