In his best of 2009 list for ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY, Stephen King recommended THE LITTLE STRANGER. The next day, I read a tweet from thriller author M.J. Rose, who was reading it and loving it. I figured a ghost story might be just the thing I needed for holiday distraction, so I purchased it. (See how powerful frequency and word of mouth are?) I was right.
What Sarah Waters has pulled off is a ghost story that may or may not be a ghost story, depending on whether or not you believe in ghosts. I happen to, full disclosure, so everything that happens in Hundreds Hall, the mansion which is the main character in the novel, feels haunted to me from the get-go.
That being said, the “ghost” part of the story is very minor, and the major aspects of the story are the history and functioning (and falling apart) of the house itself and the family that resides there: Mrs. Ayres and her two living children, the “hearty spinster” Caroline and her younger brother, Roderick, who suffered burns and has a bum leg from the war.
The story is really about Dr. Faraday, a 40-ish bachelor whose parents gave up everything to see that he could become a doctor, and his relationship with the Ayres clan and Hundreds Hall. One quickly believes he loves the mansion, even in its tired state, more than he loves Caroline. His visits to the home begin as doctor/patient-only and grow into a friendship.
Throughout the tale, various members of the family confide in Faraday to determine what exactly is happening in Hundreds Hall – the burn marks on the walls and the bruises and marks appearing on the family members, and later, a bigger fire and suicide. As a medical doctor, Faraday explains it all away — clumsiness, candles too close to walls, and ultimately, mental illness.
Does isolation and losing one’s standing in society – having to sell off parcel after parcel of your land — make you go crazy? In that aspect, can a house turn against you? Ruin your life? Or is it something more – one’s own energy and anxiety causing things to physically happen within the house? Or could it be the ghost of little Susan, the first child of Mrs. Ayres, who the mother admits she was completely in love with and loved more deeply than her other two? Does the child miss her mother, want her on the other side?
Even if you don’t believe in ghosts, but acknowledge that places have their chi, then it’s easy to see how locking away whole sections of a mansion and letting it get to a dilapidated state because you can’t afford the upkeep or repairs, could change the home’s positive energy into negative and stagnant.
Waters is a gifted writer for sure, and scanning the acknowledgments in the back of all the research she did to get the setting, time period, medicine and architecture right truly is astounding. While I would’ve preferred more haunted and less house, it’s an impressive novel and certainly stands out as a literary exploration of the psyche and the supernatural. —Malena Lott
Related posts:
- Showcase Presents The Phantom Stranger: Volume 1
- Stranger and Stranger: The World of Steve Ditko
- Showcase Presents The Phantom Stranger: Volume 2
- Locke & Key: Welcome to Lovecraft
- Hello, Stranger
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This reminds me a bit of another low-key ghost story King recommended a long time ago – “The House Next Door.” I read that years ago and thought it was pretty good.