Book of 1971: Don't Look Now by Daphne du Maurier

published 1971


collection of short stories: Extract from A Borderline Case

He had been asleep for about ten minutes. Certainly no longer. Shelagh had brought up some of the old photograph albums from the study to amuse her father, and they had been laughing and going through them together. He seemed so much better…

Shelagh was standing by the window looking down into the garden. She would remain at home, of course, as long as her father wanted her – indeed she could not bear to leave him if there was any doubt about his condition. It was only that, if she turned down the offer of the Theatre Group had made to her of playing the lead in their forthcoming series of 

Shakespeare plays, the chance might not come her way again. Rosalind…Portia…Viola – Viola surely the greatest fun of all. The yearning heart concealed beneath a cloak of dissimulation, the whole business of deception 

whetting appetite.

Unconsciously she smiled, pushing her hair behind her ears, tilting her head, one hand on her hip, aping Cesario….

observations: My contribution to Rich Westwood’s regular ‘year’ meme on his Past Offences blog: the year for December is 1971. (See the fascinating previous roundups of entries: 1963 in June, 1939 in July, 1952 in August, 1958 in September, 1932 in October, 1946 in November).

This collection of varied and creepy stories was first published as Not Before Midnight, but now takes its title from the most successful of them: Don’t Look Now, on the blog here, was made into a truly scarey but wonderful film by Nicholas Roeg in 1973. It starred Julie Christie and Donald Sutherland, contains a famous sex scene, and has given some of us a life-long aversion to red coats.

A Borderline Case is one I read many years ago, but remembered remarkably well, because I found it shocking and startling when I first read it. The extract above is from the opening: the young woman’s father is going to die, and then she will go on a mission to find his former best friend, whom he had lost touch with. It is definitely best to come to this story knowing nothing but that: you have no idea what kind of a plot this is, not even the genre, and it twists and turns – and you still don’t really know where it is going right till the very end. It is a very clever story indeed.

Considered as a 1971 book – it has one considerable credential, but unfortunately I can’t even hint at it without spoilering the story. There is a feature which was to become remarkably relevant and current soon after publication. Cannot say more.

The whole collection is very good – Borderline Case and Don’t Look Now are the stars, but the stories show du Maurier’s talents and range very well.

The colour picture is of Viola in Twelfth Night by Frederick Richard Pickersgill, via Wikimedia Commons. The character dresses up as a boy, which is when she becomes Cesario. The other is from the German Federal Archive, of an actress playing Viola – first used the picture in this entry to illustrate a CS Lewis book.