The Little Stranger

By: Sarah Waters

Narrated by: Simon Vance

A chilling and vividly rendered ghost story set in postwar Britain, by the best-selling and award-winning author of The Night Watch and Fingersmith.

Sarah Waters's trilogy of Victorian novels Tipping the Velvet, Affinity, and Fingersmith earned her legions of fans around the world, a number of awards, and a reputation as one of today's most gifted historical novelists. With her most recent book, The Night Watch, Waters turned to the 1940s and delivered a tender and intricate novel of relationships that brought her the greatest success she has achieved so far.

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 20 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.

Abundantly atmospheric and elegantly told, The Little Stranger is Sarah Waters's most thrilling and ambitious novel yet.

©2009 Sarah Waters (P)2009 Penguin

Critic reviews

"Waters has boldly reassigned all these gothic motifs [of the traditional ghost story] from their usual Freudian duties to another detail entirely: The Little Stranger is about class, and the unavoidable yet lamentable price paid when venerable social hierarchies begin to erode. … Waters has managed to write a near-perfect gothic novel while at the same time confidently deploying the form into fresher territory." (Salon.com)
"[A] marvelous and truly spooky historical novel. … As a strange spot on an old and mouldering ceiling takes on a sinister appearance and bodies begin to accumulate, Waters’s precise and chilling prose lets Dr. Faraday have his way with the story." ( Boston Globe)
"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....Faraday, one of literature's more unreliable narrators, carries the reader swiftly along to the devastating conclusion." ( Publishers Weekly)

Definitely Stranger

A fascinating book, but it is indeed strange. This is a gothic mystery set right after WW II in countryside England. The story is compelling and the reading is top notch. Don't expect a fast pace, but it is a story that you get sucked right into.

Excellent Narration, but

The narrator captured this story perfectly, I just disliked the story immensely. If you cry when an animal dies in a movie, this is not the book for you.

Loved this book. Elegant and deeply painted.

The character of this house itself is so amazing created under this writers pen. Exquisetly described and beautiful drawn.

simon vance can make any story amazing!

The story had a slightly gothic feel and Simon Vance brought it to life. the tone of post-war years of depression was poignant and illustrated the change in England.

Potentially amazing book that fell short.

Would have preferred an abridged version. Great beginning and decent end but the middle could be a chore to get through at times. I appreciated the setting and atmosphere though, and the narrator did an excellent job. However, most of the what could have been exciting scenes we were told secondhand by narrator instead of experiencing them with the character aa they happened. This book could have been fascinating with multiple 1st person POVs.

Slow burn gothic

Reminiscent of The Haunting of Hill House, though not as well paced or compelling. A fairly enjoyable listen, though any woman worth her salt will recognize the problem very early - a male doctor who just refuses to listen.

Superb novel & narration

Unforgettable story, immaculate writing - and a superb read from Simon Vance - makes this the first audiobook I’ve truly loved. Outstanding

Oddly Interesting, Immediately Forgettable

I gave this book three stars, which I give to average books. This was not memorable, but while being read (or listened) was entertaining. There were no elegant twists of plot, no surprises of character definition, and the conclusion was just an end. I didn't find it filled with fright or particularly suspenseful, but fairly predictable. I did like the narration, and the author's 19th century delivery. This bland review is appropriate for this bland book.

Better the 2nd time around

Very different from the only other Waters novel I've read (Tipping the Velvet) and shows her ability to stretch as a writer. The two novels contrast in many aspects - many characters v. few, many locales v. few, lots of action v. little, hectic pace v. sedate. Overall I think The Little Stranger works, but not quite as well as perhaps Tipping the Velvet. I felt that while Dr. Faraday was supposed to be cast as an unreliable narrator, he didn't come across that way. I couldn't get a handle on him and so Caroline's outburst at the end seemed even more alien and unjustified. Sure, he was half in love with Hundreds as much as he was with Caroline herself, but I never saw him as grasping or mercenary. He seemed more bumbling and out of touch with his own emotions and motivations to me. A bit backward and hemmed in by his role in his small community.

I also could not and did not get a handle on what exactly the Little Stranger was. Deliberate, to be sure, but I wished for something a bit more concrete to drive me to a conclusion. For once the ambiguous ending bugged me a bit. As a character, Hundreds Hall is wonderful though. The descriptions both overt and implied brought it to vivid life in my imagination. I felt pity and sorrow for its loss and the loss of other estates like it. So much history, culture and ways of life destroyed by ruinous taxation and changing values.

Foreshadowing is another of Water's strengths. Never once did I feel optimistic about circumstances or events. Everyone went from one tragedy to the next without hope of salvation. It was palpable, but somehow not depressing. I kept reading knowing the good doctor and Caroline were doomed and wanting to see how.

PS. After a second listen and some brooding, I think that possibly Faraday himself was the psychic force behind the happenings at Hundreds. He was after all, a child when he stole that bit of decoration from the house, and he did not live there. Since the house itself was really what he wanted all along, it made sense to drive everyone out so he could have it. Because it was all subconscious, he couldn't stop it and when it want too far and took Caroline, that was the end of the dream. Like the parasite that kills its host.

Just ok

This is a good story, but really- -comparing it to The Haunting of Hill House?? The Little Stranger has none of the white knuckle moments of the other story. Yet, I enjoyed it, and it kept me listening to the end to see how all would turn out. I would just caution that this is a very mild ghost story- so if you expect more you may be disappointed. The narrator was very good.