Good Morning, Midnight
Jean Rhys follows Sasha Jansen, a middle-aged Englishwoman who returns to Paris in the late 1930s, drinking to numb a life marked by failed relationships, poverty, and loss. The novel moves through her wandering days and restless nights in cheap hotels and cafes, slipping between the present and bitter memories. Rhys writes in a close, stream-of-consciousness voice that captures Sasha's loneliness and her sharp, defended way of seeing the world. There is little plot in the usual sense. Instead the book builds a portrait of a woman on the edge, trying to survive her own despair. First published in 1939, it is one of Rhys's most admired works and a key book of literary modernism about female isolation.
What you might want to know about Good Morning, Midnight
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
A lonely, aging woman drifts through 1930s Paris, haunted by her past as she tries to hold herself together day by day.
It is emotionally bleak and told in a fragmented, stream-of-consciousness style, but it is short and widely praised as one of Jean Rhys's finest novels.
Good Morning, Midnight was written by Jean Rhys, published in 1967 by Norton & Company Limited, W. W..
Good Morning, Midnight is 208 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, Good Morning, Midnight takes most readers 3 to 5 hours to finish.
Good Morning, Midnight is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.
