Authors Who Inspire: Daphne du Maurier

One of my favorite authors has always been Daphne du Maurier, the author of The Birds (made into the famous Alfred Hitchcock movie), Rebecca, Jamaica Inn and many others. But though her books are considered classics today, she was overlooked by critics during much of her lifetime.

In an industry and country largely monopolized by men, she was dismissed as a “romance novelist” which at the time meant her writing did not consist of serious works of art. Today she is known as a mistress of suspense and a master storyteller. She was born in London in 1907. Her grandfather was George du Maurier, the author of Trilby which introduced the character Svengali, a character soon to become a word in the English language that means someone who controls, manipulates or excessively influences another person. Her cousins were the Llewelyn Davies boys, who influenced J. M. Barrie’s imagination so much that he patterned the boys in Peter Pan after them.

Despite the critics’ disdain for her, when Rebecca was originally published in 1938, it became an instant hit, leading to the movie starring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine and directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

Du Maurier enjoyed gothic tales, the sinister and the paranormal. A more recently discovered short story written when she was around 21 years old is entitled The Doll and was about a woman’s infatuation with a male sex doll; in 1928, I can only imagine what a scandal that might have caused had she tried to publish it!

She married Frederick Browning in 1932, who later became known as the “father of the British Airborne”. He was portrayed by actor Dirk Bogarde in the award-winning movie A Bridge Too Far, in which he led Airborne troops during Operation Market Garden. He later became treasurer in the Office of the Duke of Edinburgh under Queen Elizabeth II’s reign.

Daphne and Frederick lived in a mansion (now an historic estate) called Menabilly, which inspired Manderley, the home in Rebecca. The home is hidden behind acres of woods and cannot even be seen from the shoreline. The home also inspired Du Maurier’s novel The King’s General, in which a skeleton is found in the cellar.

Though her books were dismissed as romance, they are not typical romantic fare, as they tend toward the dark, the mysterious, and to psychological suspense. Her books have influenced my own writing; when I awakened one night in a cold sweat after reading a chapter of Jamaica Inn, I had to sit up in the middle of the night and read it again in an attempt to discover how she caused me to be so terrified. Her heroines almost always caused me to shout out loud, “Go back!” even when I knew they would not; they would venture into places that would put them in peril, causing me to read wide-eyed until the last page.

Daphne du Maurier died in 1989 at the age of 82, having lived 24 years after her husband died in 1965. They had two daughters, Flavia and Tessa, and a son, Christian.

Have you ever read a Daphne du Maurier novel? Which is your favorite?

Monday Musing - Judging a Book by Its Cover

We've all done it - we've been drawn to a particular book in the store due to its cover. It might have been the colors used, the artwork or something else that caught our attention. But caught it, it did.

But have you ever stopped to consider that the larger publishers use focus groups to determine which covers work and which ones don't?

And did you know that with each printing, the cover is likely to change?

Our tastes change over time. We wear different styles of clothing, drive different cars, listen to various types of music. We watch different television shows, different movies. We change our hairstyles, our furniture, our decor, even our landscaping.

So it's within reason that a cover that might have grabbed our attention one year ago won't today. The mid-size and smaller publishers might or might not give this any thought; especially with POD and eBooks, they might consider once a cover is done, it's done.

But it never truly should be.

Consider all of the covers below. They are all for one book: Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier. It was reportedly Alfred Hitchcock's favorite book and his favorite movie (that he directed.)

If you saw each of these book covers today, would one grab your attention while you'd quickly pass by another?



The Importance of Setting

I grew up reading Daphne du Maurier's books and fell completely in love with the windswept moors and granite cliffs that wind their way through her suspenseful books. While reading Jamaica Inn, I could envision the main character trying to get away from the murderer, only to get bogged down in the swampy footholds of the moors in the dead of night. The setting for her books became antagonists in themselves, often hindering the good guys and helping the bad ones.

There was also something mystical about England in the days before electricity, gasoline-powered automobiles and technology. It was a world that was pure escapism, with all the good, the bad and the ugly.

I've had a few ah-ha moments in my life and one of the most vivid occurred when I was planning to move from Virginia (where I'd spent most my life, having been born in Washington, DC) to the southeastern corner of North Carolina. This region was immortalized in the movie, Cape Fear, which was originally released in 1962.

I was searching for an area in which I'd like to live after a driving rainstorm that caused the swamps to overflow their banks. The water was covered with thick green algae and the trees were sunk into the swamps with huge ballooning trunks surrounded by jagged "knees". It made me realize just how difficult it would be for a main character to try and escape a murderer through those swamps. It conjured up images of alligators, leeches, mosquitoes the size of a hummingbird... And those books I loved by Daphne du Maurier.

I had been writing Ricochet, a suspense/thriller that I'd intended to have occur in the Shenandoah Valley. But after that amazing day driving around Robeson County, NC, I decided the only place to have it set was the swampland. I changed the setting and then went back to Robeson County for the setting of Exit 22, which has been my most popular suspense/thriller to date.

Exit 22 has spawned a series, and I am finding as I've been writing books #13, 14 and 15, that I love the swamps as an antagonist - and sometimes also as an ally. In Vicki's Key, set for release in March 2012, the Lumber River serves as both a place in which two lovers fall in love--and a spot to dispose of a corpse later. Secrets of a Dangerous Woman, the third in the series (set for release in September 2012) returns to the swamps as both friend and foe. And Dylan's Song (set for release in March 2013) takes us across the ocean to Ireland.

As part of the research for Dylan's Song, I am planning a trip to Ireland. I am looking forward to visiting such a  mystical place, a place filled with moors and mist and fog... And I will no doubt feel a kinship with Daphne du Maurier while I am there.

Oddly enough (or perhaps not) my ancestors were from Ireland so I am feeling as if I am headed home. I still have distant cousins living there who never left Ireland when my branch of the family emigrated to the U.S. in search of a brighter future. And when I return to Robeson County, North Carolina after that trip, I will no doubt remember why the Scottish and the Irish fell in love with this area so many generations ago. Perhaps it has something to do with the swamps, the misty mornings, the fog that rolls in... And the perfect setting for suspense/thrillers.