{"id":7659,"date":"2019-01-08T07:33:54","date_gmt":"2019-01-08T12:33:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7659"},"modified":"2019-01-08T07:33:57","modified_gmt":"2019-01-08T12:33:57","slug":"the-winters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=7659","title":{"rendered":"***The Winters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

By Lisa Gabriele \u2013 The author set herself a high bar in tackling a modern reimagining of Daphne du Maurier\u2019s classic psychological thriller, Rebecca<\/em>, with its famous first line\u2014\u201cLast night I dreamed I went again to Manderley.\u201d Gabriele\u2019s first line, \u201cLast night Rebekah tried to murder me again\u201d is startling, if lacking the original’s poetic power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nevertheless, a novel is more than its opening line. I\nreread the set-up for du Maurier\u2019s gothic thriller to reacquaint myself with\nthe story and her style, so I could assess whether Gabriele\u2019s new novel stands\nup to the original, since it so deliberately invites the comparison. I ended up\nwith a mixed opinion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As in the original, Gabriele\u2019s (again, unnamed) narrator, a\nrather unsophisticated if sincere young woman, does not fit easily in the\nsocial set of her new fianc\u00e9, wealthy New York Senator Maxim Winter. Winter\ndismisses her feelings of being out-of-place, despite (or is it because of?)\nher stark dissimilarity to his late wife\u2014the beautiful, charming, and talented\nRebekah. I didn\u2019t really warm up to the narrator\u2014odd, since the book is written\nin the first-person\u2014nor did I find her a wholly convincing character. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As in the original, most of the story takes place at a\nlegendary and enormous family residence. The Winter estate, Asherley, was built\non its own island at the far eastern end of Long Island, facing the sea. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a brilliant move by Gabriele, the narrator\u2019s antagonist is not the confidant of the late Mrs. Winter, the housekeeper (Mrs. Danvers in the original); in Gabriele\u2019s version, the principal opposition to the marriage and to the narrator herself comes from Max and Rebekah\u2019s teenage daughter, Dani. Many of us have seen how fraught relationships with step-children can be, and this was a persuasive adjustment to modern times. There is a lot going on with Dani, though her rebellious teenage machinations are hard to forgive, for narrator and reader alike.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the set-up of the two novels is reasonably similar,\ntheir plots begin to diverge about half-way through. Even so, having Dani\nvolunteer to help the narrator find a wedding dress evokes nail-biting echoes\nof disaster that play out in a completely unexpected way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabriele\u2019s writing style is, of course, markedly different\nfrom that of a novel written eighty years ago. Still, I miss du Maurier\u2019s long\nloopy sentences and lush descriptions. In the new version, you see the Winter\nmansion through modern eyes and a more practical, less dreamy affect. In place\nof a wall of blood-red rhododendrons, you have a profusion of vases full of\nRebekah\u2019s favored deep red roses. Tastes differ as to whether a more florid\nstyle better fits a romantic story about a woman blinded by love\u2014or is she?\u2014and\nhaunted by her dead rival. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gabriele\u2019s narrator is a refreshingly modern woman, appreciative\nof Max Winter\u2019s extreme wealth, but not overawed by it. Even so, she finds\nherself trapped by circumstances. In today\u2019s world, a difficult housekeeper\nwould be dismissed; it\u2019s not so easy to divest oneself of a step-daughter, even\na calculating, substance-abusing, and foul-mouthed one like Dani. Gabriele,\nhaving set aside the evil housekeeper, finds new ways for Rebekah\u2019s memory to\ntorment the new Mrs. Winter, while the ghost of du Maurier\u2019s Rebecca<\/em> necessarily haunts The Winters<\/em>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may recall Alfred Hitchcock\u2019s 1940 Academy Award-winning film<\/a>, Rebecca. A new version is in the works, starring Armie Hammer and Lily James.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"\/<\/a><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Lisa Gabriele \u2013 The author set herself a high bar in tackling a modern reimagining of Daphne du Maurier\u2019s classic psychological thriller, Rebecca, with its famous first line\u2014\u201cLast night I dreamed I went again to Manderley.\u201d Gabriele\u2019s first line, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"***The Winters - lots of discontents in this new domestic noir that deftly updates the classic Rebecca.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[52,366,40,57,394],"tags":[1468,392],"class_list":["post-7659","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime","category-drama","category-fiction","category-movies","category-romance","tag-domestic-noir","tag-psychological-thriller"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/vweisfeld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Rose-Red-e1546949877350.jpg?fit=300%2C200&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-1Zx","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7659"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7659\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7661,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7659\/revisions\/7661"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}