The Little Stranger is a gothic novel set in post-war Britain, penned by Sarah Walters, whose previous work, "Tipping The Velvet" and "Affinity", also presented a blend of history and character-driven stories. The Little Stranger checks all the boxes for traditionally written ghost stories; spooky old family house falling into creaky disrepair? Check. Slightly eccentric and not entirely likeble characters? Check. Things that go bump in the night? Check. Yet despite its success as a gothic horror story, Waters never intended to write the story of the Ayres family in this way.
The family, aristocrats who previously enjoyed incredible financial fortune, were struggling to make ends meet, and their fear of the future was making them slightly insane. The book was actually intended to be a book about the rise of socialism in post-war Britain, and the affect it had on the declining upper classes. It became a gothic horror story when the malevolent supernatural presence in the home began to affect the family far more than the concerning political situation in the country or the fading of their personal fortune. As an author, Waters is renowned for the complexity and detail of her research, and because she studies so many novels written in the era in which her novels are set, she also uses many colloquialisms of the day that add an air of authenticity to the characters and their situation.
The story is a relatively simple one told through the eyes of Dr Farraday, doctor and friend to the Ayres family, a fairly unreliable narrator whose recounting to the reader of events is often different to the version that we read in conversations between Farraday and the family. Obviously influenced by the gothic authors who went before her, particularly Wilkie Collins and Edgar Allen Poe, Walters also adds a level of ambiguity to her writing that makes it also completely different. Is the house possessed? Possibly. Is the house haunted by the ghost of a dead child? Maybe. Are the Ayres family imagining that they are plagued by a supernatural being as a result of going slowly mad with emotional stress? That's possible too. The point is, it is up to the reader to decide who, or what, is actually bringing tragedy to Hundreds House. Walters suggests, but never states unequivocally.
Like Walters's first two novels, The Little Stranger was nominated for a Mann Booker Prize and was atop the bestseller lists for a number of months.
