cover image The Extraordinary Life of Rebecca West

The Extraordinary Life of Rebecca West

Lorna Gibb. Counterpoint (PGW, dist.), $30 (352p) ISBN 978-1-61902-374-1

Gibbs (Lady Hester) unfortunately misses the mark in this desultory and bland retelling of the long and storied life of a significant literary and cultural figure of the 20th century. Born CicelyIsabel Fairfield in 1892, West first tried a theatrical career, then turned to writing (taking Rebecca West as her pen name), and became involved with political movements, including the fight for women’s suffrage, and worked as a novelist, critic, and journalist well into her old age. Her long, tumultuous affair with the married H.G. Wells, with whom she had a son, proves a central thread, with Wells emerging as a caddish figure. Despite the promising subject, West’s life reads as a dreary stream of unhappy love affairs, illness, and strained familial relations, including with her troubled, angry son, Anthony. The era’s famous figures make the briefest of cameos: D.H. Lawrence, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Agnes de Mille, the Prince of Wales, and Wallis Simpson. Gibbs’s account also falls short of critically assessing West’s work and her sometimes controversial political views, such as her rabid anti-communist sentiment. A few moments give the reader hope, as when Gibb discusses West’s non-fiction masterpiece about Yugoslavia, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, but these are short-lived. Photos. (May)