Du Maurier’s work rarely has a happy ending, yet she’s often described as a romantic novelist, a characterization she rejected and despised. Fantasy and mystery were descriptions she might have found more to her liking. Whatever one’s opinion on that debate, her short stories are certainly dark, if not noir, hovering close to the paranormal and often haunting the reader long after the final sentence is read.


“Kiss Me Again, Stranger” is neither a ghost story nor a supernatural tale, but rather a classic example of du Maurier’s uncanny ability to keep the reader thinking it just might end up being one of those. A nameless young man narrates the story of his evening at the cinema, where he’s irresistibly taken by a beautiful usherette. He follows her onto a bus, sits beside her, pulls her close to him, and rests her head on his shoulder. I shall not tell you what happens when they later go off together into a cemetery, except to quote what another has written about the usherette: “it is hard to think of any female character in British fiction, before this husky siren, who does what she does and with such cool aplomb: an unexpectedly powerful proto-feminist role model.”