Too Little Frights

The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

What a disappointment this was. All the elements for a good ghost story are there: a decaying grand house, a cast of characters with varying damaged psyches, a perfectly described England post-World War II, and a series of paranormal events that get progressively worse. So what went wrong? I think Waters chose to stretch what could have been a great short story or novella into a novel with too much padding. With ghost stories, either you get it right or you get it wrong, there is no middle ground: the suspense has to be just right, the build up carefully leading the reader to a dénouement. Any padding on the way that makes you put down the book and do something else dispels the creepiness, unlatches the trap, blows away the mists.

But the novel isn't a complete failure: there's a very subtle and enjoyable nod to Shirley Jackson's "Haunt of Hill House" in the character of Caroline, a "spinster" with modern views on how a woman should lead her life; and the novel does have a great ending that brings the story full circle to its first pages. Waters is very good at bringing to period romances a touch of the unexplored, queer and even kitschy. That quality is absent here, apart from a few eggy paranormal scenes that do very little to bring the reader back into the story.

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