After her award-winning trilogy of Victorian novels, Sarah Waters turned to the 1940s and wrote THE NIGHT WATCH, a tender and tragic novel set against the backdrop of wartime Britain. Shortlisted for both the Orange and the Man Booker, it went straight to number one in the bestseller chart. In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to a patient at Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over 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 sinister 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. Prepare yourself. From this wonderful writer who continues to astonish us, now comes a chilling ghost story.
The Little Stranger
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'Sarah Waters's masterly novel is a perverse hymn to decay, to the corrosive power of class resentment as well as the damage wrought by war . . . (Waters has) a perfect understanding of her period . . . She deploys the vigour and cunning one finds in Margaret Atwood's fiction, the same narrative ease and expansiveness, and the same knack of twisting the tension tighter and tighter within an individual scene . . . THE LITTLE STRANGER operates in the queasy borderlands between the supernatural and the psychopathological, and it is territory in which Waters moves with an air of supreme ease . . . It is gripping, confident, unnerving and supremely entertaining . . . Its allusions, its implications softly gather and fold themselves into the spce in the mind that the book has made for itself, falling into place with a soft hiss, a rustle like phantom silks' -- Hilary Mantel, Guardian
'While at one turn, the novel looks to be a ghost story, the next it is a psychological drama . . . But it is also a brilliantly observed story, verging on the comedy, about Britain on the cusp of modern age . . . The writing is subtle and poised' Joy lo Dico, Independent on Sunday -- Joy lo Dico, Independent on Sunday
`A gripping story, with beguiling characters . . . As well as being a supernatural tale, it is a meditation on the nature of the British and class, and how things are rarely what they seem. Chilling' Kate Mosse, The Times, Summer Read -- Kate Mosse, The Times, Summer Read
`Displaying her remarkable flair for period evocation, Waters recreates backwater Britain just after the Second World War with atmospheric immediacy . . . Acute and absorbing' Peter Kemp, Sunday Times -- Peter Kemp, Sunday Times
`It would be unfair to reveal very much about The Little Stranger: enough to say that this reader, left along one night in her boxy Seventies ex-council house - about as unspooky a place as you can image - had to stop reading for fright. . . Waters has . . . determined to scare the pants off her rightly devoted audience. In that she succeeds unequivocally: you'll want to sleep with the light on' Erica Wagner, The Times -- Erica Wagner, The Times
`Sarah Waters' masterly novel is a perverse hymn to decay, to the corrosive power of class resentment as well as the damage wrought by war . . . (Waters has) a perfect understanding of her period . . . She deploys the vigour and cunning one finds in Margaret Atwood's fiction, the same narrative ease and expansiveness, and the same knack of twisting the tension tighter and tighter within an individual scene . . . The Little Stranger operates in the queasy borderlands between the supernatural and the psychopathological, and it is territory in which Waters moves with an air of supreme ease . . . It is gripping, confident, unnerving and supremely entertaining . . . Its allusions, its implications softly gather and fold themselves into the space in the mind that the book has made for itself, falling into place with a soft hiss, a rustle like phantom silks' Hilary Mantel, Guardian -- Hilary Mantel, Guardian
'While at one turn, the novel looks to be a ghost story, the next it is a psychological drama . . . But it is also a brilliantly observed story, verging on the comedy, about Britain on the cusp of modern age . . . The writing is subtle and poised' Joy lo Dico, Independent on Sunday -- Joy lo Dico, Independent on Sunday
`A gripping story, with beguiling characters . . . As well as being a supernatural tale, it is a meditation on the nature of the British and class, and how things are rarely what they seem. Chilling' Kate Mosse, The Times, Summer Read -- Kate Mosse, The Times, Summer Read
`Displaying her remarkable flair for period evocation, Waters recreates backwater Britain just after the Second World War with atmospheric immediacy . . . Acute and absorbing' Peter Kemp, Sunday Times -- Peter Kemp, Sunday Times
`It would be unfair to reveal very much about The Little Stranger: enough to say that this reader, left along one night in her boxy Seventies ex-council house - about as unspooky a place as you can image - had to stop reading for fright. . . Waters has . . . determined to scare the pants off her rightly devoted audience. In that she succeeds unequivocally: you'll want to sleep with the light on' Erica Wagner, The Times -- Erica Wagner, The Times
`Sarah Waters' masterly novel is a perverse hymn to decay, to the corrosive power of class resentment as well as the damage wrought by war . . . (Waters has) a perfect understanding of her period . . . She deploys the vigour and cunning one finds in Margaret Atwood's fiction, the same narrative ease and expansiveness, and the same knack of twisting the tension tighter and tighter within an individual scene . . . The Little Stranger operates in the queasy borderlands between the supernatural and the psychopathological, and it is territory in which Waters moves with an air of supreme ease . . . It is gripping, confident, unnerving and supremely entertaining . . . Its allusions, its implications softly gather and fold themselves into the space in the mind that the book has made for itself, falling into place with a soft hiss, a rustle like phantom silks' Hilary Mantel, Guardian -- Hilary Mantel, Guardian
Review
`A gripping story, with beguiling characters . . . As well as being a supernatural tale, it is a meditation on the nature of the British and class, and how things are rarely what they seem. Chilling' Kate Mosse, The Times, Summer Read
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
443 of 458 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
To be honest I have always had a bit of a soft spot for ghost stories but even allowing for a certain bias regarding the subject matter this is without doubt a blindingly good novel. On the surface it is all so deceptively simple. A country doctor, approaching a dreary and unloved middle age, finds himself paying regular visits to the local stately pile where he encounters the once grand but now rather moth-eaten Ayres family. Soon afterwards strange and seemingly supernatural events begin to take place: the formerly placid family dog attacks a small child; strange marks appear on the walls; bells ring for no apparent reason; doors occasionally seem to lock themselves and sinister scribbles inexplicably turn up on doors and windowsills. Dr Faraday seeks, and believes he finds, a rational explanation for the strange events but the Ayres are altogether less sure.
What makes this apparently rather simple set-up so compelling is the skill with which Waters applies layer after gentle, rustling layer of doubt, paranoia and unease. Dr Faraday is, for example, a far from perfect narrator. Unimaginative, class-conscious and painfully aware that he doesn't have the 'right accent' to fit in with the grand Ayres he finds himself alternating between cloying resentment towards the family one minute and fawning servility the next. In turn the Ayres have fallen on financially ruinous times and the - from their perspective - frankly unpleasant plebian classes are literally encroaching on Ayres territory in the form of council houses being built on land skirting Hundreds Hall. Working class on the way up collides with landed gentry on the way down. The whole situation is a portrait in minature of post-war England preparing to tear itself apart. Throw in a possible romance and an unhappy event from the Ayres's recent past and you have an explosive mixture - sort of 'Rebecca' meets 'The Turn of the Screw' via Borley Rectory.
I finished reading The Little Stranger a few days ago and it hasn't settled quietly into its grave. It rustles and creaks; it casts shadows where shadows really shouldn't be and it refuses to tie itself up into a neat little bundle of comfortable conclusions. The more I think about it the more wheels within wheels within wheels I begin to see. It's beautifully elegant and it flows in the way only novels written by born story-tellers ever seem to manage; and more than anything else it creeps up on you in subtle, disturbing ways. Sarah Waters is one of our finest novelists and while this may not have the immediate shock impact of, say, Fingersmith, I think in its quiet and deceptively gentle way it is every bit as good. A beautiful novel with dark, haunted depths.
What makes this apparently rather simple set-up so compelling is the skill with which Waters applies layer after gentle, rustling layer of doubt, paranoia and unease. Dr Faraday is, for example, a far from perfect narrator. Unimaginative, class-conscious and painfully aware that he doesn't have the 'right accent' to fit in with the grand Ayres he finds himself alternating between cloying resentment towards the family one minute and fawning servility the next. In turn the Ayres have fallen on financially ruinous times and the - from their perspective - frankly unpleasant plebian classes are literally encroaching on Ayres territory in the form of council houses being built on land skirting Hundreds Hall. Working class on the way up collides with landed gentry on the way down. The whole situation is a portrait in minature of post-war England preparing to tear itself apart. Throw in a possible romance and an unhappy event from the Ayres's recent past and you have an explosive mixture - sort of 'Rebecca' meets 'The Turn of the Screw' via Borley Rectory.
I finished reading The Little Stranger a few days ago and it hasn't settled quietly into its grave. It rustles and creaks; it casts shadows where shadows really shouldn't be and it refuses to tie itself up into a neat little bundle of comfortable conclusions. The more I think about it the more wheels within wheels within wheels I begin to see. It's beautifully elegant and it flows in the way only novels written by born story-tellers ever seem to manage; and more than anything else it creeps up on you in subtle, disturbing ways. Sarah Waters is one of our finest novelists and while this may not have the immediate shock impact of, say, Fingersmith, I think in its quiet and deceptively gentle way it is every bit as good. A beautiful novel with dark, haunted depths.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Holmleas
Format:Paperback
I'll lay out my stall straight away: I think Sarah Waters is one of our best living writers and I've enjoyed every one of her books. 'The Little Stranger's is her first venture into the ghost story, though it's a muted, subtle ghost story with none of the gothic horror of, say, 'The Woman in Black'.
Its subtlety also means there's plenty of scope for character development and, as with Sarah's other novels, it's the characters that make the book as the central theme of social upheaval and change in the post-war years is explored. What impressed me the most was Faraday's voice: it perfectly captures a slightly chip-on-the-shoulder, aging heterosexual male, an amazing achievement given the writer's background. Also perfectly captured is the oppressive, creepy atmosphere of Hundreds Hall.
As for the ending... well, I can see that this has caused a lot of controversy and debate but I thought it worked brilliantly. It is laden with ambiguity and meaning and the fact that it's impossible to come to any definite conclusion is what gives it its strength. I haven't stopped thinking about it since I put the book down.
Overall: in some ways a change of direction for Sarah Waters, nevertheless a creepy, atmospheric ghost story.
Its subtlety also means there's plenty of scope for character development and, as with Sarah's other novels, it's the characters that make the book as the central theme of social upheaval and change in the post-war years is explored. What impressed me the most was Faraday's voice: it perfectly captures a slightly chip-on-the-shoulder, aging heterosexual male, an amazing achievement given the writer's background. Also perfectly captured is the oppressive, creepy atmosphere of Hundreds Hall.
As for the ending... well, I can see that this has caused a lot of controversy and debate but I thought it worked brilliantly. It is laden with ambiguity and meaning and the fact that it's impossible to come to any definite conclusion is what gives it its strength. I haven't stopped thinking about it since I put the book down.
Overall: in some ways a change of direction for Sarah Waters, nevertheless a creepy, atmospheric ghost story.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Audio CD|Amazon Verified Purchase
The reviews for this book in the media, weren't too favourable, but I bought it having read "Affinity" - my favourite Waters book. Don't get me wrong, it took a while for me to get into the book, but once I did - I was completely hooked. I think it very brave of Waters to explore psychological/mental health of the Ayres family; especially in a 1940s setting - when mental illness was hardly discussed.
There is a real twist at the finale, that really took me by surprise and also left me a little disappointed. I don't think it's one of Waters strongest books, but it is still a good read.
I did not think I would like this book, but I would highly recommend it to anyone!
There is a real twist at the finale, that really took me by surprise and also left me a little disappointed. I don't think it's one of Waters strongest books, but it is still a good read.
I did not think I would like this book, but I would highly recommend it to anyone!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
I LOVED this book and have raved about it to everyone!
I was nearly halfway through the book before it grabbed me. The pace was interminably slow, with endless, apparently unnecessary descriptions and little happening in the story. Read more
Published 1 day ago by veritas
3.0 out of 5 stars
It's Ok
I was recommended this book by a friend who was petrified when he read it. I found it ok, slightly scary, good characters and storyline. Read more
Published 5 days ago by Indie, London, England
2.0 out of 5 stars
A tragic ghost story
Not normally a book that I would have read, but was book of the month for a book club.
It is a story of a house more than anything else, and the family and people that inhabit... Read more
It is a story of a house more than anything else, and the family and people that inhabit... Read more
Published 7 days ago by Half Man, Half Book
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent novel!
This is a piece of art! Carefully constructed! as a reader you really have to be prepared to read, this open ended take is not so open ended if you follow the clues!
Published 12 days ago by Patricia Macintyre
5.0 out of 5 stars
She isn't always.....kind...
I love this delicately layered, opaque and menacing tale, particularly for the fact that each reader can put any number of interpretations they like on it. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Sasha D
1.0 out of 5 stars
Thoroughly lacklustre and a big disappointment
It takes a lot to make me abandon a book once I've started it, and I was really looking forward to reading this one. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Ms. R. M. Keys
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Little Stranger
Again this book was as described. Neat tidy with no tears or pages missing. A great way to recycle. Great
Published 2 months ago by T Stafford
1.0 out of 5 stars
slow starter or non starter
It took 98 pages before anything actually happened - talk about dull & tedious. Where was the sense of menace? The supposedly "scary" sections were more comical than frightening. Read more
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