name they share in slang. "Rapunzel, Rapunzel": A hospital patient makes a temporary stay at a convalescent home in London, with a long-haired Australian as her neighbour. "Who Knows What's Up in the Attic?": A vacationer in south-east England comes face-to-face with a clothing salesman. "Sleep It Off Lady": In this story from which the collection takes its name, another old lady faces a rat problem while taking care of her cottage. "I Used to Live Here Once": In this final story, the author makes her way across a familiar childhood stream and discovers she is deceased. Reception The book was generally well received, with Robie Macauley in The New York Times writing : "The fact that the scenes themselves come from the West Indies or London or Paris of decades past has no real bearing—these are very modern stories written with a quick, young sensibility." Kirkus Reviews wrote "This is a more incidental collection of short stories than Tigers are Better-Looking (1974) while still retaining the disconsolate allure of everything Jean Rhys has written" and called the collection "A force mineure, but how insistently, inductively, Jean Rhys makes herself felt in the small hours of the morning or at the fag end of the day." Previous publications "Pioneers, Oh Pioneers" in The Times under the title "Dear Darling Mr Ramage" "Sleep It Off Lady" in The New Review "The Insect World" in The Sunday Times Magazine (UK) and Mademoiselle (USA) "Goodbye Marcus, Goodbye Rose" in The New Yorker "Heat" in The New Yorker "Kikimora" in The New Yorker "On Not Shooting Sitting Birds" in The New Yorker References 1976 short story collections Short story collections by Jean Rhys André Deutsch books