A VIEW OF THE EMPIRE AT SUNSET

Narrator Justine Eyre sounds simultaneously enticing and embittered in Phillips's interesting novelization of the life of author Jean Rhys. That's just as it should be, as Rhys was famously troubled and talented. Born in Dominica, Rhys's most famous novel, WIDE SARGASSO SEA, imagines an island childhood for the mad wife in Charlotte Brontë's JANE EYRE. Phillips's novel contrasts Rhys's own island childhood and her later years in England in alternating lush/chilly, hopeful/cynical sections. The audio format gives Eyre ample scope to explore warring aspects of Rhys's personality--sour and alluring, drunk and innocent--and to people the recording with vibrant vocal portraits of English voices, as well as Rhys's Welsh father and Creole mother, and the many islanders. A.C.S. © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine [Published: AUGUST 2018]