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Book Review: The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Sarah Waters’ latest novel has made the recently-announced Booker Prize shortlist. It’s the third time on the shortlist for Waters and we’re wondering whether this might be the year the darling of lesbian lit takes the gong. Carolyn Ride reviews the book that’s put Waters in contention once again.

Sarah Waters (Tipping The Velvet, Fingersmith, Night Watch) is renowned for her sexy, visceral and engaging historical fiction and for enjoying both a loyal lesbian fanbase and mainstream appeal. Three of her novels have been adapted for the small screen. Her new post- World War Two novel, The Little Stranger, may disappoint some. There is no overt sexuality, straight or gay. However, the key elements that make Waters so beloved to readers – detailed prose, unreliable but compelling characters, increasing tension culminating in a shocking twist – are all there in spades.

The narrator is Doctor Faraday, an ageing bachelor who – thanks to the sacrifices of his servant parents – has become a doctor in rural England. He has not succeeded financially, though, and is as resentful of the persistent English class system as he is fascinated by the memory of Hundreds Hall, a grand mansion he visited once in 1919 when his mother was a maid there.

His chance to revisit the place 30 years later comes when he is summoned to attend to 14-year old Betty, housemaid to the aristocratic but shabby Ayres family who own Hundreds Hall. Neither the crumbling hall nor the three remaining Ayres are doing well in an age of postwar austerity and money-fuelled class mobility. Doctor Faraday gets increasingly involved with the family, helping wounded and bitter son Roderick with his injuries and falling for universally overlooked spinster daughter Caroline. Yet the Ayres’ troubles go from bad to worse, with the appearance of a mysterious, malignant force which terrorises the family and causes events – their gentle dog savaging a neighbour’s child, a devastating fire – that threaten to destroy their already precarious position. Is it a poltergeist, psychological reactions to stress, or deliberate acts by one of the characters (all of whom have the necessary malice to ruin others)?

As a huge Sarah Waters fan, I was surprised to find The Little Stranger slightly long-winded and unengaging at first. Usually she plunges the reader straight into the world she’s describing. However, perseverance paid off; at least until the anticlimactic ending. At least for most of the novel, I was hooked by the story, fascinated by the characters (all of them intriguing, none of them loveable) and seduced by the author’s sense of place and plot. Hundreds Hall is a character in its own right, and Doctor Faraday is one of literature’s ultimate ‘unreliable narrators’. Best of all, Waters’ characters are products of their place, time and class, with all the gruesome prejudices and snobbery of the time. None of them are modern people, with modern liberal viewpoints, plonked into a historical setting to make the reader identify with them.

Spooky and spectacular or overwrought and overlong? Both were true for me with this book, but it would make a great discussion point in a book club.

Carolyn Ride is a writer, editor and reviewer – when asked nicely.

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