Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Loving True Blood in Dallas book suggestion: "The Little Stranger

The Little Stranger by Sara Waters

You can read first two chapters on author's site HERE

Review
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. Doctor Faraday, a lonely bachelor, first visited Hundreds Hall, where his mother once worked as a parlor maid, at age 10 in 1919. When Faraday returns 30 years later to treat a servant, he becomes obsessed with Hundreds's elegant owner, Mrs. Ayres; her 24-year-old son, Roderick, an RAF airman wounded during the war who now oversees the family farm; and her slightly older daughter, Caroline, considered a “natural spinster” by the locals, for whom the doctor develops a particular fondness. Supernatural trouble kicks in after Caroline's mild-mannered black Lab, Gyp, attacks a visiting child. A damaging fire, a suicide and worse follow. Faraday, one of literature's more unreliable narrators, carries the reader swiftly along to the devastating conclusion.
Publishers Weekly Starred review

Salon review here

1 comments:

Rose said...

Dallas,
This looks like a great book, but the Slate review reminded me that I must re-read "The Turn of the Screw". Good stuff. Thanks for the heads-up on "The Little Stranger".