Book Review - The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

Synopsis:  With The Little Stranger, Waters revisits the fertile setting of Britain in the 1940s-and gives us a sinister tale of a haunted house, brimming with the rich atmosphere and psychological complexity that have become hallmarks of Waters's work.

The Little Stranger follows the strange adventures of Dr. Faraday, the son of a maid who has built a life of quiet respectability as a country doctor. One dusty postwar summer in his home of rural Warwickshire, he is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for more than two centuries, the Georgian house, once grand and handsome, is now in decline - its masonry crumbling, its gardens choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine. But are the Ayreses haunted by something more ominous than a dying way of life? Little does Dr. Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to become entwined with his.

First Line:  "I first saw Hundreds Hall when I was ten years old."

Random Quote:  "After thinking the matter over, they could only conclude, doubtfully, that one of the cinders she had combed from Roderick's hair still had the germ of a fire in it, and the dryness of the newspaper had encouraged it back into life.  Naturally, this was a very disturbing thought."

Review:  I'm fond of Sarah Waters because she tells good stories in original ways.  I was especially excited to read this one because it's a haunted house story (sort of) and I do love a haunted house story.

Guy's Cliff - Warwickshire - Image by Cornell University Library via Flickr

Set in the crumbling Hundreds Hall in Warwickshire in the 1940's, this is not a ghost story full of obvious scares.  It's not The Shining - it's The Turn of the Screw and The Haunting of Hill House crossed with We Have Always Lived in the Castle.  As with these books the fear is psychological and caught out of the corner of your eye as you move from room to room.  Was that spot on the wall there the last time I looked?  How long has that cabinet been broken?  Is that a voice I'm hearing in the night?

While this book is reminiscent of those others I mention, it is very much its own thing, as well, being more concerned with the way Hundreds Hall and its aristocratic family are falling literally to pieces as the world changes around them.  The (very unreliable) narrator, Dr. Farraday, a village boy made good covets the house and its occupants and sets about to save them.  Or does he?

Ultimately Waters tells the tale of the end of things - of a house, of a family, of a class, of a way of life, of an era.  The book's story builds at a snail's pace that manages to be utterly appropriate since it allows you to savor small moments in a way a faster-paced novel would not.  The first two-thirds of the books is picture-perfect, but the last third tends to flit all around and has a quality of many elements thrown against the wall to see what sticks.  It begins to feel a bit rushed and as if the story got away a bit from its author.  Some readers will find the lack of a clear finish disappointing, but I did not.  Mostly, I enjoyed the evocation of a time and place and the telling of one small story located within it.

Reading Challenges:  Complete Booker 2010, Historical Reading Challenge 2010, Speculative Fiction Challenge 2010, 2010 100+ Reading Challenge, 2010 A to Z Reading Challenge, 2010 Support Your Local Library Reading Challenge, Typically British Reading Challenge