Book Review: My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

Daphne du Maurier is great at writing so that you get lost in the story; it seems so seamless and effortlessly atmospheric. Granted, Mary Anne wasn’t the same caliber, but the praise applies to Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel. I still like Rebecca a lot more, probably because I related to the new Mrs. de Winter so much and loved reading from her perspective, but My Cousin Rachel is also a great paradigm of du Maurier’s masterful storytelling.

My Cousin Rachel is a murder mystery where we never actually get the solve, where not even du Maurier knew whether Rachel was good or evil, whether Rachel actually murdered Phillip’s godfather Ambrose, because according to an interview she did, du Maurier wrote it as Phillip. And if you read the novel, you know that Phillip is absolutely clueless. Perhaps too clueless and too gullible for some, a bit too lovestruck, but it surprisingly never annoyed me. There were times where I said to Phillip, “nooooo, don’t do that, wake up, try to be a little more discerning,” but it was always a good-natured moan in the spirit of the novel.

Daphne plants the seed of Rachel’s guilt early on in the novel with Phillip’s original suspicion, and then waters it with culminating clues as Phillip becomes more and more enchanted by Rachel. But she also plants clues of Rachel’s innocence, and the reader has to decide which is more believable. The most compelling and most confusing evidence is Rachel herself—her actions and her words. This novel masterfully explores what I see as a beguiling narcissism in Rachel. All of the characters in the novel are well-developed, but Rachel definitely stands out. It’s an incredible feat to write such depth in a character that is also ultimately designed to be up for interpretation.

I finished the book (and I was not expecting that fateful act of inaction from Phillip) and immediately went back to the first chapter and scanned for clues on his life after the events of the novel conclude (since the narration is written by Phillip after the fact). I like to think that Phillip eventually got over Rachel and married Louise, because Phillip definitely needed a practical woman in his life as a sounding board. 

For those who’ve read it: my two cents is that Rachel definitely poisoned both Ambrose and Phillip, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t care for the men, particularly Phillip. She liked the way they nourished her narcissism, but didn’t like when she couldn’t control them, and they were ultimately dispensable. With Phillip, it actually reminded me of Phantom Thread that I watched on Netflix a while back, where the woman occasionally poisoned her strong-willed partner every so often when he would get restless, just so he would realize how much he needed her as she played the nurturing role. It’s almost the same dynamic, except Rachel is a bit more ruthless. Perhaps the only reason Rachel didn’t poison Phillip enough to kill him is purely rational: it wouldn’t make as much sense as old Ambrose. Signor Rainaldi did probe about Phillip’s health, and he was obviously in peak condition, so him dying of the same symptoms as Ambrose might have raised too many eyebrows. Or perhaps Rachel just couldn’t bring herself to do away with both of them.