The Little Stranger

3:24 pm 25 June 2015
The Little Stranger - Sarah Waters

This was a very slow-burn type of novel. 

 

It definitely managed horror, at least in atmosphere, but the ending was not quite what I expected. I had rather hoped for something more "traditional" for this genre, although I didn't dislike it once I had thought about it for a bit.

 

In terms of explaining it, I'm going with:

he himself was sending out the ghostly "vibes," carefully calculated to each member of the household. His obsession with the house led him to, after marrying into it failed, killing the last surviving member of the family so that the house would be left empty for him to simply wander around and enjoy.

(show spoiler)

 

The evidence for this is moderately nebulous, admittedly, but

he does have an odd dream of a part of him flying to the house and that almost throw-away joking comment that none of this had started until he showed up, as well as his general monomania regarding the house. He managed to carefully (and unconciously?) remove every single person in is way.

(show spoiler)

 

The atmosphere was well-handled and permeated the story perfectly--I was deeply impressed. The characters felt very real and I was interested to see how things would turn out for them, and the plot was interesting, although it didn't go where I expected. I think I might be a new fan of Sarah Waters, and I'm interested in seeing what else she has written.

review Gothic