Sunflower

Never completed or previously published, Sunflower is a fictional record of a shattering period in West's life: the end of her lengthy relationship with H. G. Wells and her misdirected passion for the colorful Lord Beaverbrook. The novel's protagonist is Sybil "Sunflower" Fassendyll, actress and popular beauty of the 1920s, who leads a miserable private life despite wealth and fame. Insecure without male admiration, Sunflower struggles with the increasing aridity of her 10-year liaison with brilliant, married Lord Essington. At last she breaks with him in hopes of conventional happiness with Francis Pitt, a charismatic public figure. Here the plot stops, but West's outline confirms that Sunflower's romantic fortune would parallel her own. A fascinating psychological portrait of female anxiety.