The Little Stranger

Title: The Little Stranger
Author: Sarah Waters
Published: 2009 by Virago
Genre: A little ghost story. Also, historical
Pages: 499


As I said in the meme, I'm still trying to figure this one out. I got The Little Stranger as soon as it came out, quite excited, but with other books to read and work and all, I kept putting starting it away again and again. Started it finally a month or two ago, but didn't get farther than the first 20 pages or so. Then I picked it up again on the 22nd, and didn't really put it down until I finished it yesterday morning.

So yes, it's quite captivating. TLS tells the story of an old English family and their old English house, the Ayreses and their Hundreds Hall, through the eyes of a GP, doctor Faraday, who is facing the coming of the NHS. World War II has just passed, so nothing is as it used to be, and the past is inevitably gone. A few decades ago there were a dozen or more servants at Hundreds, but now there is only the one, a young girl who Dr. Faraday is called in to check on. Young Betty claims that there is a strange presence in the old house, but Dr. Faraday, a man of realism, doesn't quite believe her. Neither do the Ayreses, Caroline, Roderick and their mother, but soon none can deny that there is something odd going on.

What exactly is going on, that's what I'm still figuring out. Faraday is practical, a realist, and so are his views on the occurences. But with so much going wrong, and so fast, the Ayreses and the reader do wonder.

Waters' older books are as beautifully historic as this, but there are no lesbians in this one (wahh!) ...although I did wonder about Caroline. But anyway, as with Affinity, TLS is sprinkled with just a small dose of the supernatural, enough to spook the reader, whether it was all true or just a trick of the light and an overactive imagination. TLS moved on steadily, towards an ending that seemed darker and darker. Scared the living daylights out of me, especially at this one point... and that hasn't happened with a book since I read On the Banks of Lethe, by James L. Grant. Steady, but highly captivating.


"And so there came one of those moments - there were to be several, in the months that followed - that I would forever look back on with a sense of desperate regret - almost with guilt. For I could so easily have done something to ease his departure and speed him on his way; but if anything, I did just the opposite."

...Faraday, you plonker.