The Little Stranger by Sarah WatersRiverhead Books (Penguin), 2009

This is the story of crumbling house in Warwickshire, the family who lives in it, and a doctor, whose first name we never learn, who finds himself increasingly entangled with the family’s affairs. It’s a story about class tensions, and also a ghost story, quite creepy and hard to put down, but at the same time, not entirely satisfying. I think part of the problem is the fact of it being a ghost story: for much of the book, I found myself thinking ahead to the ending, wondering how Waters would resolve (or not resolve) things, wondering what would be explained rationally, and what wouldn’t be. And then there’s the narrator, who’s a bit too rational and well-spoken, and the plot, with its moments of obviousness, and the whole post-war British landed-gentry mood, the stiffness and the distance between characters. I think I liked the period details best, the Tortoise stove and the kerosene lanterns for when the house’s generator is turned off, and the doctor making his round of calls, and there are some wonderful moments, like when the daughter of the house explains how she and her brother set the old broken clock by the stable to twenty minutes to nine, after the time that Miss Havisham’s clocks are stopped at in Great Expectations. But as Sarah Waters novels go, I much prefer the queer Victorian ones to this and to The Night Watch.