This is a novel about the decaying last days of the manor house aristocracy. He is a character familiar to readers of historical fiction, to those who enjoy Victorian and post-Victorian stiff upper lip, to the lover of gothic ghost stories, haunted houses, and to those who know the work of Sarah Waters we are in familiar territory throughout, and yet we are also surrounded by freshness and vitality. He is yearning for things – love, acceptance. Dr Faraday’s life from that moment does indeed change, but not in the ways he had hoped, as his life becomes more and more entwined with The Aryes and the strange goings on at Hundred’s Hall.įaraday is a solitary central figure, a man trapped in a world that is both outside his control and partly of his own making. He hopes this is the moment all his years of struggle striving to drag himself up from his humble origins will begin to bear fruit hoping this is the opening of the door to social strata he has always had his eye on. His patients are often from the rural slums, so he is happy to get a call from the Aryes family at Hundreds Hall. Dr Faraday, a Warwickshire country GP, is middle aged and from a working-class background. The country is bankrupt and suffocating in post-war depression. The year is 1947 Britain is victorious, but battle-worn. Gary Raymond offers his take on The Little Stranger by Sarah Waters as part of our series to find the Greatest Welsh Novel.
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