Book Review: Till September Petronella is not intended to be a serious, short story collection. Instead the pieces were selected for variety, just providing a small taste to see if Jean Rhys is your cup of tea. Progressing through time and the ages of life, the four stories presented here are:
"The Day They Burned the Books" - set in the Caribbean, about a twelve year old girl and her friend encountering the harsh realities of the adult world. Reminiscent of Wide Sargasso Sea and just a bit of Jamaica Kincaid.
"Till September Petronella" - a pretty, London party girl accidentally bumps through life on the very eve of the First World War. A character very much like that in Rhys' four novels written in the Twenties and Thirties (culminating in Good Morning, Midnight (1939)). A character without skin, almost too sensitive to live, barely able to engage in the world around her. Even when she can't emerge from her interior monologue and hurt, her looks make her attractive to men and her vulnerability makes friends of women. When September arrives the world will be changed.
"Rapunzel, Rapunzel" - Unusually, a story focusing on someone other than the perhaps now middle-aged, first-person narrator, set in a London convalescent home. About something mysterious or about unthinking cruelty. How we all have something we cherish that may be important only to us, but it is important.
"I Used to Live Here Once" - the only one of the four written in the third person, a brief encounter, just a moment, an epiphany, a realization, again set in the West Indies, maybe a ghost story, maybe something else.
Till September Petronella is a varied and well-chosen selection of stories, covering much of Rhys' unique style and temperament. [4★]
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