From the multi-award-winning and bestselling author of The Night Watch and Fingersmith comes an astonishing novel about love, loss, and the sometimes unbearable weight of the past. In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to see a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the once grand house is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its garden choked with weeds. All around, the world is changing, and the family is struggling to adjust to a society ...
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From the multi-award-winning and bestselling author of The Night Watch and Fingersmith comes an astonishing novel about love, loss, and the sometimes unbearable weight of the past. In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to see a patient at lonely Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the once grand house is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its garden choked with weeds. All around, the world is changing, and the family is struggling to adjust to a society with new values and rules. Roddie Ayres, who returned from World War II physically and emotionally wounded, is desperate to keep the house and what remains of the estate together for the sake of his mother and his sister, Caroline. Mrs. Ayres is doing her best to hold on to the gracious habits of a gentler era and Caroline seems cheerfully prepared to continue doing the work a team of servants once handled, even if it means having little chance for a life of her own beyond Hundreds. But as Dr. Faraday becomes increasingly entwined in the Ayreses' lives, signs of a more disturbing nature start to emerge, both within the family and in Hundreds Hall itself. And Faraday begins to wonder if they are all threatened by something more sinister than a dying way of life, something that could subsume them completely. Both a nuanced evocation of 1940s England and the most chill-inducing novel of psychological suspense in years, The Little Stranger confirms Sarah Waters as one of the finest and most exciting novelists writing today.
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Add this copy of The Little Stranger to cart. $5.98, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Atlanta rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Brownstown, MI, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by McClelland & Stewart.
Add this copy of The Little Stranger to cart. $5.98, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Atlanta rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Brownstown, MI, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by McClelland & Stewart.
Add this copy of The Little Stranger to cart. $5.98, very good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by McClelland & Stewart.
Add this copy of The Little Stranger to cart. $5.98, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Dallas rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by McClelland & Stewart.
Add this copy of The Little Stranger to cart. $5.98, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by McClelland & Stewart.
Add this copy of The Little Stranger to cart. $5.99, very good condition, Sold by HPB Inc. rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Dallas, TX, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by Emblem Editions.
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Add this copy of The Little Stranger to cart. $6.52, good condition, Sold by ThriftBooks-Baltimore rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Halethorpe, MD, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by McClelland & Stewart.
Add this copy of The Little Stranger to cart. $9.84, new condition, Sold by Book Outlet rated 5.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Jefferson City, TN, UNITED STATES, published 2010 by Emblem Editions.
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New in new dust jacket. New, Publisher overstock, may have small remainder mark. Excellent condition, never read, purchased from publisher as excess inventory.
Moody and interesting characters, but just didn't take off for me. Her Fearful Symmetry has now set the bar higher for these kinds of stories.
COVER2COVER
Apr 25, 2010
This was a good ghost story which could have been a great ghost story. I have read one other book by this author, and she is a very talented writer, but since I am not a fan of lesbian/gay fiction I have avoided her books until I saw this one which does not contain that element. I was really looking forward to this one, but found it dissappointing due to uneven pacing and large sections that could have been left out altogether.
The story is told from the perspective of a middle aged, bachelor, country doctor who has pulled himself up from the working class, and only makes a modest living. From his boyhood he has been in awe of a local estate, Hundreds, and manages to ingratiate himself to the remaining members of the family who are struggling to maintain the estate which is gradually deteriorating around them. He eventually manages to get himself engaged to the plain spinster daughter. Disturbing things begin happening in the house; strange marks on walls, items "moving" inexplicably, strange sounds "teasing" the occupants from room to room, fires, and more until people are driven to madness or suicide. Caroline, the daughter, reads about a theory that an individuals subconcious can somehow cause these things to happen, that a "little stranger" can be released from an individual unknowingly. Caroline suspects her mentally disturbed brother, but by the end of the book you will suspect someone else entirely.
I wish I could give this four or even five stars because the story itself is great. Unfortunately it just drags in too many places, and as other reviewers have pointed out, could have used some editing by a hundred or more pages. Too Bad! Otherwise great.
Valentyne
Oct 28, 2009
Really hooked me
I agree with many of the other reviewers who felt pulled in and involved in this story. I loved and enjoyed the supernatural elements, but they are not the main story, though they lurk beneath everything that happens, and certainly will raise goosebumps. There is a mystery here to be unraveled, but it ends up being somewhat ambiguous. I don't mind, since the narrator Faraday sees what he can see through the lens of "rational" thinking and his subjective experience; the reader can read in other things and take another point of view, and most likely will. Most interesting. The book really pulled me forward and kept me up late at night and reading fully engrossed in noisy situations where I normally would be distracted. A good sign! The characters are sympathetic in most every case, and the tragedy of the Ayers family imbues the entire tale with melancholy and longing. A great book which I highly recommend.
