The Little Stranger (Hardcover)

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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. Waters (The Night Watch) reflects on the collapse of the British class system after WWII in a stunning haunted house tale whose ghosts are as horrifying as any in Shirley Jackson's The Haunting of Hill House. Doctor Faraday, a lonely bachelor, first visited Hundreds Hall, where his mother once worked as a parlor maid, at age 10 in 1919. When Faraday returns 30 years later to treat a servant, he becomes obsessed with Hundreds's elegant owner, Mrs. Ayres; her 24-year-old son, Roderick, an RAF airman wounded during the war who now oversees the family farm; and her slightly older daughter, Caroline, considered a natural spinster by the locals, for whom the doctor develops a particular fondness. Supernatural trouble kicks in after Caroline's mild-mannered black Lab, Gyp, attacks a visiting child. A damaging fire, a suicide and worse follow. Faraday, one of literature's more unreliable narrators, carries the reader swiftly along to the devastating conclusion. (May)
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From The Washington Post

From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com Reviewed by Ron Charles Sarah Waters ain't afraid of no ghost. Her new novel, a deliciously creepy tale called "The Little Stranger," is haunted by the spirits of Henry James and Edgar Allan Poe. Waters is just one turn of the screw away from "The Fall of the House of Usher." Here, once again, a malevolent force moves through a crumbling mansion in which live the final two siblings of a faded great family. And yes, Waters's unbalanced young man is named Roderick, too. This is one of those eerily familiar stories in which a character lit only by candlelight insists, "There's nothing bad here, nothing spooky," and you just know they should all get the hell out of that house. But even though Waters is sewing together the necrotic parts of long-dead literary forms on a dark and stormy night, she keeps the lightning flashing in every gloomy chapter, and you can't help but gasp, "It's alive!" What saves "The Little Stranger" from sinking into a fetid swamp of cliche is the author's restraint, her ability, like James's, to excite our imagination through subtle suggestion alone. The supernatural creaks and groans that reverberate through this tale are accompanied by malignant strains of class envy and sexual repression that infect every perfectly reasonable explanation we hear. The result is a ghost story as intelligent as it is stylish. I'm not giving anything away by reminding you to keep your eyes on the narrator. Dr. Faraday is a priggish middle-aged bachelor who describes these peculiar events with a pose of scientific rationalism and "a sense of desperate regret -- almost with guilt." He has a vivid memory of visiting the grand Hundreds Hall as a child in 1919, and so when he's called back to the rural Warwickshire estate almost 30 years later to treat one of the servants, he's shocked by its decrepitude. "The house was collapsing," he notes with dismay, "like a pyramid of cards." The once large staff has been reduced to just one teenage girl, who's faking a stomachache in hopes of being fired from this creepy place. Waters conjures up everything in "The Little Stranger" elegantly, but what's most fascinating is her portrayal of Faraday. The son of poor laborers, he develops a complicated response to Hundreds Hall and the Ayreses, the withering family of aristocrats riding it into the grave. He's flattered to be called into their home and consulted as an expert, but he also feels the embarrassment of his humble origins, the "absurd sense of gaucheness, and falseness." Even standing in their parlor, enjoying their liquor, flirting with the daughter, he suddenly realizes, "I looked more than ever like a balding grocer." The response to "The Little Stranger" will be a little different in this country than in England, where Waters lives. Because Americans persist in pretending we have no class system, we've never developed the Brits' vocabulary of duty, expectation, resentment and adoration that's so central to the themes of this macabre novel. (In one particularly dire moment, Dr. Faraday says, "It's as if -- well, as if something's slowly sucking the life out of the whole family," and a friend replies, "It's called a Labour Government.") Also, English readers may remember seeing impressive estates like Hundreds Hall broken up, turned into museums or even bulldozed into suburbia. For Faraday such a transformation would be an unthinkable tragedy, and the Ayreses act as though they can forestall the inevitable. "They seem to pride themselves on living like the Brontës out there," a man in town observes. They carry on "gaily at gentry life," even while furtively reusing postage stamps. The son, Roderick, has returned from the war with some nasty burns and a bad limp, but feels the "awful pressure" of rebuilding the estate without nearly enough money. Hundreds Hall is an almost hermetically sealed world of lost gentility . . . if only the rot could be arrested. Dozens of rooms are permanently closed off, "dead as paralysed limbs." Over the stable door is a broken clock set to 8:40 -- a wry reference to Dickens's Miss Havisham. "I had slipped into some other, odder, rather rarer realm," Faraday notes with a mixture of rapture and alarm. Adoring the house and eager to ingratiate himself with its tattered owners, Faraday sublimates his envy into deep concern for their welfare, a psychological state that calls to mind Patricia Highsmith's clever psychopath, Tom Ripley. Soon, horrible mishaps start taking place, emergencies that make the Ayreses grateful that the talented Dr. Faraday is so close at hand. But don't get the impression that psychology alone can explain what's happening in this doomed house. Confronted with these weird events, Freud himself would have to admit that sometimes a demon-possessed cigar is just a demon-possessed cigar. Hundreds Hall is full of inexplicable sounds, fluttering shadows, burn marks on the walls, a beloved pet suddenly turned vicious and -- most grotesque of all -- "ordinary things . . . come to crafty, malevolent life." What are we dealing with here? Hysteria? Evil spirits? A jealous doctor? Waters teases us with clues that send us running off in every direction: psychological, paranormal and socioeconomic. But the story's sustained ambiguity is what keeps our attention, and her perfectly calibrated tone casts an unnerving spell over these pages. As Dr. Faraday correctly notes, "In any other setting, such a story would have struck me as farcical." A century ago, Henry James said he'd been inspired to write "The Turn of the Screw" by the disappointment among his literary friends that "the good, the really effective and heart-shaking ghost-stories . . . appeared all to have been told, and neither new crop nor new type in any quarter awaited us." He needn't have feared that. We've enjoyed 100 years of fantastic horror writing in myriad crops and types. But here Waters has made the old bones dance again.
Copyright 2009, The Washington Post. All Rights Reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Riverhead Hardcover; First Edition edition (April 30, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594488800
• ISBN-13: 978-1594488801
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.4 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (80 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,316 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

54 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Atmospheric Gothic tale, April 10, 2009

By	z hayes (plano,texas) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

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"The Little Stranger" marks a departure for novelist Sarah Waters, who has also written works like "Affinity" and "Tipping the Velvet" which had lesbian themes in them. "The Little Stranger" does not have such themes, instead it is a well-constructed, beautifully-written Gothic tale that focuses on a crumbling great house in the English countryside. It is post WW II in Britain, and the war has wrought a lot of changes in society - many aristocratic and rich families have seen a decline in their fortunes, and one such family is the Ayers' family - Mrs Ayres is a dignified middle-aged woman who despite her rather impoverished circumstances still holds on to an old way of life, her 27-year-old daughter Caroline is an unattractive spinster who is content to traipse about the countryside in plain clothes with her well-loved dog Gyp, and her 24-year-old brother Roderick is a battle-scarred war vet who reluctantly finds himself taking over Hundreds Hall, the family estate.

Quite by accident, our narrator, Dr Faraday finds himself getting acquainted with the family when he is called in to treat the family's maid, 14-year-old Betty, who is prone to fanciful thoughts and dreams up phantom ailments. Dr Faraday finds himself drawn to the Ayres' not only because his mother was once a nursery maid at Hundreds, but also because he has not outgrown his childhood fascination with the crumbling manor. When Roderick begins to exhibit strange behavior, and starts rambling about poltergeist-like activity in the house, Dr Faraday's initial cynicism is put to the test by the unfolding of more peculiar and malevolent events at the house.

This is not a traditional horror story, but more of a psychological thriller that takes its time unfolding [about a hundred pages into the book in fact], and the suspense builds up slowly yet surely, rewarding patient readers with a complex novel that is populated with well-delineated characters. It would be doing this book disservice if it were to be labelled as purely a tale of the supernatural, for it is much more than that - the book also explores class distinctions as the Ayres' represent an upper class family fallen on hard times, yet still cling on to the old way of life, keeping a maid for appearance's sake, and refusing to let go of the house, even as it drains the last ounces of their financial resources and physical strength.

"The Little Stranger" is also about the dynamics of human relationships - of the complex ties between parent and children [Roderick laments that he has been a constant source of disappointment to his mother], the bonds between siblings, and of human yearnings [for social acceptance, affection etc].

This is not a wisp of a novel but a hefty read, yet I found myself compelled to finish it within two days. I'd rate this as my favorite of Sarah Waters' work because I happen to love highly atmospheric novels and "The Little Stranger" exceeds my expectations on that account. I'd also recommend works like "The Sisters" by Poppy Adams, "The Thirteenth Tale" by Diane Setterfield, and "The Forgotten Garden" by Kate Morton.

46 of 51 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A ghostly novel of in-betweens, March 28, 2009

By	Lilly Flora "by Lilo Drandoff" (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

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I have very, very mixed feelings about this book, "The Little Stranger." On the one hand I deeply appreciate the excellent writing and planning which went into it and I read through it as fast as I could. On the other hand there never seemed to be an ultimate climatic moment in the book and when I finished it I had the feeling that something was missing. After much thought I am still unable to identify this something.

This will be billed as a historica suspense/ghost story and while that is an accurate description of the book it is really a novel of people and places stuck in-betweens. It is shortly after WW2 and in England the minor aristocracy are going through changes. This is particularly true for the Ayres family who live in the once stately Hundreds hall. But now most of the money is gone, the land is being sold off piece by piece and the hall itself is turning into a crumbling ruin. Living there are Mrs. Ayres and her two grown up children, who aren't adapting very well to the new, more democratic world. With one maid left who still wears the uniform the Ayres are firmly stuck in place between the pre-war world and the post war one.

Into their lives comes our narrator, Dr, Faraday, a bachelor in between youth and middle age and between his roots as a poor boy whose mother was a nursemaid at Hundreds and the country doctor he is now. Quite by accident he is called to see to a medical situation at the hall and slowly begins to become friends with the family. Mrs. Ayres, a woman physically barely on the brink of being elderly but mentally lost in the past, Roderick, her son and lord of the manor who was badly injured in the war and Caroline, the unfeminine, plain speaking daughter.

Faraday seems to be caught between resentment at the Ayres hanging on to a dead life style which makes him beneath them and jealously at their (crumbling, but once grand) social position. Either way he can't tear himself away from the Hall. And then strange things begin to happen.

The rest goes the way of a typical ghost story-strange happenings, both annoying and violent, a sense of dread, of the House being alive, as well as a more intellectual scoffing at al matters supernatural. Through it all Faraday is our window into the world at Hundreds Hall.

Like I said earlier the writing in this book is very good. I pretty much raced through it. But for some reason the ending left me very dissatisfied-maybe because this isn't a grand, story kind of novel but more about an strange episode in an otherwise ordinary man's life.

I've only read two other Sarah Waters' novels but "The Little Stranger" is very similar in atmosphere to Affinity-both are gloomy books that always seem to be in decaying gray environment.

Four stars. If you like this you'll probably want to read The Thirteenth Tale: A Novel Or vice versa.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Super Haunted House Story, April 21, 2009

By	Danielle Lane (Horseshoe, North Carolina) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

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This is a story told by a poor boy who made good, sort of. As a boy Dr. Faraday's mother took him out to the Great Georgian house where she worked. Faraday was blown away by how the better half lived. The house was a mansion called The Hundreds. Faraday has grown up, he's become a doctor and is called out to the Hundreds to treat an ailing maid. The girl is fourteen and she was faking her illness. The doctor doesn't tell and we get the impression this doctor/narrator is a good guy who wouldn't betray a confidence. We are to learn differently as the story progresses.

While out at the house he meets the elderly matriarch Mrs. Ayres and her children Roddy and Caroline. Roddy has been injured in the Great War and Dr. Faraday offers to treat him for free. And free is the important word here, because the family Ayres have lost their money and the house is crumbling down around them. It's all they can do to keep up appearances.

During a house party Caroline's docile dog Gyp virtually tears the face off a young house guest and has to be put to sleep to avoid a lawsuit. Roddy starts seeing and hearing things, confides to Dr. Faraday. Faraday promises to keep Roddy's secret, then promptly tells and has him committed and strangely Roddy would rather be locked away than stay in that house. That alone should have been a clue to the other residents.

And there you have the beginning of this haunting tale, a story I couldn't let out of my grip till I finished. Sarah Waters has turned out the kind of haunted house story that I used to love to read when I was little. It's like she took a delicious little kid's ghost story and turned it into one for grownups. This is a creepy tale in a lot of ways, good ways. I felt sorry for the people affected and I loved the ending. If you're not afraid of things that go bump in the night, read this book and you will be.