Rereading Review: "Frenchman's Creek" by Daphne Du Maurier

Daphne Du Maurier is perhaps one of the queens of the modern gothic alongside women like Shirley Jackson, Tabitha King and Anne Rice. I have written a bit about Du Maurier's works before and she has often been picked up by people like Sir Alfred Hitchcock for her compelling and original storylines (that when you actually look at them are perhaps more rooted in mythology and are even moreso extended metaphors for the horrors of womanhood than we care to understand). My rereading of Frenchman's Creek therefore was a study in rediscovering lesser known works of her fictions with my personal favourite being The Apple Tree, or of course My Cousin Rachel (which was recently butchered by Hollywood).

Five years or so ago I wrote a piece entitled Women Writing Horror in which I had a look at the way in which women have always dominated the horror fiction scene even though a lot of people seem to think this is a modern phenomenon. Of course, Daphne Du Maurier might be modern, but she isn't that modern...

Here are some reviews of other Daphne Du Maurier novels I have read...

Frenchman's Creek is about a woman who is utterly dissatisfied with the shallow life of a Londoner. Dona is someone who is looking for something more, but has grown tired of the London city lifestyle. She goes into the countryside and lives in her husband's 'empty' country house for a bit. Of course, it's not actually empty because it's being used by a pirate named Jean-Benoit Aubéry - a frenchman who is surprisingly intelligent and actually a pretty articulate guy. As we know Daphne Du Maurier, we know that something strange has to happen, something uncomfortable has to take place. I mean, there is a romance but that isn't what makes it uncomfortable. I think what makes this book unsettling is the fact that this country house is meant to be empty and there are so many questions surrounding the situation with the pirate. There's something about being locked in a large house with you first point of contact being a shifty pirate guy. That's what is unsettling.

She disguises herself as a boy in a very Shakespearean way and helps the pirate capture a neighbour's merchant ship. I'm not going to lie, there's something even stranger here because we essentially have a wealthy 'Lady' (not the idea of a lady but rather, that is her title) who just goes completely and utterly insane. She disappears off to a country house and suddenly believes that she can do whatever she feels like and that she is somewhat invincible to consequence. This of course, is not true and we will discover that as we go on into the book. Daphne Du Maurier is definitely the queen of suspense and tension, we see everything as a point where the glass beneath our feet could completely shatter.

Well it gets even more chaotic because this particular pirate raid brings Dona's husband and his friend named Rockingham (who also seems to have a thing for Dona) to the country home and of course, the husband is looking for his unfaithful wife. There's a huge conflict that ensues and we get attacks, fights and arguments in the classic way that Daphne Du Maurier makes an atmosphere explode with action whilst also keeping the mood tense and thunderous. You can almost see this in your head, there's scratching violins in the background, maybe a rush of quiet drums and perhaps everything's a bit discordant. But as the tension grows something finally breaks out... there's a murder.

I adored revisiting this lesser-known Daphne Du Maurier novel. It's a short one but that doesn't mean it's any less than her other works. A brilliantly tense, a vividly atmospheric and genuinely very original story - it's books like this that remind me of Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen and Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. A novel where the domestic space becomes a character. In this book the country house is an escape yes, but it is also a character that encapsulates secrecy, somewhere where our main character can let go of a shroud of morality expected of her in the gossipy streets of the capital city.