Review: The Paying Guests by Sarah Waters

Book: The Paying Guests

Author: Sarah Waters

Pages: 576

I Read: The Kindle version

I Read it in: 7 hours (across two days)

Plot Summary: It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned; the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell villa — a large, silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and even servants — life is about to be transformed as impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers.

With the arrival of Lilian and Leonard Barber, a modern young couple of the “clerk class,” the routines of the house will be shaken up in unexpected ways. Little do the Wrays know just how profoundly their new tenants will alter the course of Frances’s life — or, as passions mount and frustration gathers, how far-reaching, and how devastating, the disturbances will be.

Things I Liked: 

1. I liked the post-War (World War I) setting of this book. It captures the sense of loss, despair and disillusionment of the people as Britain was recovering from the loss of sons, fathers, brothers, husbands and just able-bodied men in the War. This manifested itself in big and small ways, which have been beautifully and poignantly captured by Waters in the book. 

2. The changing social order and the challenges that this created for the 'gentlemen' class was also interesting to read about. Sarah Waters has a real gift for capturing the sense of loss that comes with the transition of the 'old order' to the new one. She has done it beautifully in her other, much acclaimed works as well. 

3. The characters were very well etched out. I particularly enjoyed reading about Frances- her inner and outer struggles, her sense of responsibility, her conflicted feelings, her sacrifices and, ultimately, how really human she is. 

4. Lilian was also very interesting and also, deliberately, intriguing. I liked that her motives could be explained away or understood or analysed in either way (sorry, can't say more; don't want to spoil things), which leaves it up to, as the reader, to make up your mind about her. 

5. The writing, of course, is lovely, 

Things I Didn't Like: 

1. The book could have been crisper. There was a fair amount of superfluous stuff in the last third of the book that should have been chopped up on the editors' block. 

2. I would have liked to know more about Lenny (Lilian's husband).. he is rather like a shadow and not fully fleshed out as a character. 

Rating: 4/5 

This book is well written and raises some interesting questions about morality and doing the right thing.