The Lines Are Open

I revisit a fun, classic Gothic thriller.

Last week was all grief and walking and pavlovas. This week I want to stay on the other side of that — the highs — because I am trying to get better at receiving good things. I have a tendency to deflect (like every woman I know). Something wonderful happens and my first instinct is to find the outside explanation — the timing, the luck, the someone-else-who-deserves-the-credit. It can’t possibly be because of me.

But this one is because of me. And my beloved little store.

It’s been almost two years since I opened the doors at Wild Plum Books. I loved getting the store ready — painting the walls that particular shade of green, building a window bench where people can hang out (it’s the equivalent of the dressing room chair), installing lighting and figuring out genre signs and display hooks for the merch. My very first customers were on a road trip in a giant RV and they practically wiped me out! It was an electrifying way to start. I had no idea what I was doing, but I’m slowly finding my footing. After years of working for good bosses and bad bosses, creating for other people, it feels incredible to be building something on my own terms.

Opening days!!

We’ve reached the moment where I get to announce that very good thing!! It feels dizzying to say that the immensely cool, outrageously talented SOFIA COPPOLA has asked to do an event with us!!!!!!! Can you stand it!? I almost fell over when her people pitched the idea.

More details to come, but save the date for July 3rd and come spend an evening at Niebaum-Pennino, her family’s very charming winery. I promise to let you know as soon as tickets are available later this week.

Sofia — can I call her that?? — will be chatting with one of her impossibly well-read author friends, Vendela Vida, about their favorite books. For this pinch-me-moment to coincide with my two year store anniversary is a dream. And, in the spirit of receiving, I’m going to let this very good thing land in my body. I’m going to feel it deep in my bones and celebrate how far I’ve come.

• Forever searching for that particular Great Expectations shade of green. How lovely is it as slouchy, soft crewneck?? Part of &Daughter’s summer sale.

• The 90s kid in me loves an anklet and this enameled one from Dorsey is a big step up from those camp-made versions.

• This new cutie little bag from Alex Mill screams summer.

• I don’t even think that clogs are that comfortable, but I find them irresistible nonetheless!! Especially when they’re this good.

• How many blue striped shirts is too many?? Let’s not find out.

• Because I am desperately seeking comfort, I watched Eternity after listening to Da’Vine Joy Randolph rave about copper pots and KitchenAids on Good Hang. Let me tell you, it was a delight!! The premise is this: souls have one week in a kind of hotel conference purgatory to figure out where they want to spend eternity. Alas, the eternity without men is sold out. Funny and quirky and quietly romantic.

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

Did I ever share that I went to boarding school for the last two years of high school?? It was no Andover or Choate or Exeter but it had ivy covered brick buildings and a sprawling quad and a dorm mom who sounded just like Ani DiFranco. Coming from a public high school of 3,000 kids where I ate lunch in the bathroom and shrank down to the smallest (emotional) version of myself, I thrived at a school with thirty kids in the graduating class. I actually got to play sports and test the waters of the debate team and take AP English because the teacher in his unironic plaid scarf had an infectious enthusiasm for the written word.

I first read Rebecca in that teacher’s classroom — ten students around a big wooden table like a scene out of The Secret History. I was transfixed by the story of romantic suspense. First published in 1938, Rebecca is sinister and dreamy and emotional. I loved falling back into Manderly with its haunted rooms and threatening shoreline nearly thirty years later. I had forgotten most of it, until a scene would float to the surface of my memory and I would think, yes! That terrible Mrs. Danvers or the insecure Mrs. de Winter or the brooding husband.

If you haven’t read it or seen one of the many movie adaptations, Rebecca is about a very young bride, her new husband and the famous mansion, Manderley, on the Cornish coast that serves as its own character. Rebecca, the first wife of Maxim de Winter, was beautiful and witty and polished to a sharp point. She died tragically in a sailing accident, but her larger-than-life persona continues to haunt Manderley. She is felt in every detail from her sloping handwriting to her precious objects in the Morning Room.

The nameless second wife (we only know her as Mrs. de Winter) is a mere child in the shadow of such a mammoth personality. She bites her nails. Her clothes are shabby. She cannot manage the house. The staff quietly mock her until she is left stammering and subservient. The husband grows distant, even though they’re recently back from their honeymoon. Rebecca’s devoted, menacing maid, Mrs. Danvers, watches everything with an eagle eye.

But really, it's the writing that had me swooning. The atmosphere, the tension, the superbly loathsome characters. It is the original Gothic thriller and I felt everything for that anxious, stammering narrator and her complete inability to take up space in a room that never wanted her. The structure is slightly strange, opening at the ending, and by page 400 I had to go back and reread the first chapter just to close the loop. Worth it. A deliciously dark escape.

1. A long, collarless linen coat is just so elegant.

2. I’m going to start carrying BaubleBar at the bookstore (the cutest bead kits!) so I’ve been shopping around. These bezel earrings feel like Dorsey but at a fraction of the price.

3. The sweetest, most feminine crocheted cardigan would look equally terrific with a pair of jeans as it would with that poplin skirt.

4. A ladylike pair of ballet flats.

5. Waterproof, highly pigmented and perfect for Rebecca’s dramatic eye.

6. Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

7. This dress is $1000 and already sold out in most sizes, but doesn’t it deserve a place on this round up? It’s possible the most beautiful dress I have ever seen and would be perfect descending the grand staircase.

8. The chicest wellies are a necessity at the English seaside.

9. A Donegal sweater for chilly walks through Happy Valley, to the forbidden cove (currently on sale!).

10. A sweet, vintage-feeling poplin skirt for traipsing around the manor grounds.

Hope you’re reading something good 💚