599 pages
English language
Published Sept. 29, 2015 by Virago.
It is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen, the out-of-work and hungry are demanding change. In a genteel Camberwell villa -- a large, silent house now bereft of brothers, husband, and servants -- impoverished widow Mrs. Wray and her spinster daughter, Frances, are obliged to take in lodgers. Little do the Wrays know just how profoundly their new tenants will alter the course of Frances's life -- or how far-reaching the disturbances will be.
You get your historical, your police procedural, your lesbian love, your suspense, your British locale. You get closely observed emotional shifts, plot twists, beautiful writing. I picked this up knowing nothing about it and read it non-stop.
Slow to get started, but once the main plot kicks in it gets hard to put down. The ending was a bit sudden and unsatisfying
Abandoned a third of the way through, just after the announcement of pregnancy. I never stopped being bored and for a book this long it's got to have something happening to keep my interest. I have much preferred the other books I've read by this author.
Another fantastic, twisted story from Sarah Waters. Wow. There's no predicting where the story will go. I found it to drag a bit in one section but I was too invested to even consider stopping. And I felt on the edge of my seat until the very last word.
There are few authors who can weave a tale like Waters and I'll certainly pick up her next book.
7/2015 Re-reading and enjoying it just as much as the first time. Maybe a little more.
Set between the wars, the period is a fascinating one. So many of the young men were lost, with the women left behind. Frances and her mother have been left with a big house and bills to pay in a time where women were only just coming round to the idea of financial independence. Many of the men who returned from war, struggling to find employment, were bitter that the women had things better than them.
One things families like Frances’ could do was rent out rooms to lodgers; or paying guests as they called them to make them sound posher. I loved the chapters where they are getting used to the sounds upstairs, the invasion of privacy of having strangers in yours home but also the balance of allowing them to make the place their home too.
The minutiae of everyday life in the twenties is intricately described. It …
Set between the wars, the period is a fascinating one. So many of the young men were lost, with the women left behind. Frances and her mother have been left with a big house and bills to pay in a time where women were only just coming round to the idea of financial independence. Many of the men who returned from war, struggling to find employment, were bitter that the women had things better than them.
One things families like Frances’ could do was rent out rooms to lodgers; or paying guests as they called them to make them sound posher. I loved the chapters where they are getting used to the sounds upstairs, the invasion of privacy of having strangers in yours home but also the balance of allowing them to make the place their home too.
The minutiae of everyday life in the twenties is intricately described. It really wasn’t that long ago when all household chores were done by hand. The upkeep of a large house takes a lot of work, something families who had lost their staff during the war were coming to realise. We think of the twenties as a glamourous time but this book shows the other side of the coin.
The writing is maybe too descriptive, especially in places where it should be faster paced. It also means the book is too long in my opinion. The story drags out and loses some of its impact. The crime aspect of the story is also one that I’ve heard so many times before. Maybe the period and the people involved were different, but I just didn’t feel like I was reading anything new.
I was also disappointed it didn’t explore more about the political changes for women at the time. It was a period of great change and it hints at some things. At least Christina is living out a more modern life. Instead it is an intimate story of two people who become embroiled by fate but, I admit, I was expecting more from Sarah Waters.
The Paying Guests is something a little different for Sarah Waters; set in 1922 London, it is a period of history I don’t expect from this author. The novel tells the story an impoverished widow and her spinster daughter who are struggling to keep their large Camberwell villa after the loss of her husband and sons due to the war. They take in a modern young couple, Lilian and Leonard Barber to help make ends meet. True to Sarah Waters form, The Paying Guest is full of tension and mystery, but there was something missing.
Granted I have only read Tipping the Velvet (I really should read Fingersmith) but what I know and expect from Waters is something set in the 1800’s. Needless to say this was an enjoyable novel, exploring the differences in classes and the effects of World War I on the people in London. This period of …
The Paying Guests is something a little different for Sarah Waters; set in 1922 London, it is a period of history I don’t expect from this author. The novel tells the story an impoverished widow and her spinster daughter who are struggling to keep their large Camberwell villa after the loss of her husband and sons due to the war. They take in a modern young couple, Lilian and Leonard Barber to help make ends meet. True to Sarah Waters form, The Paying Guest is full of tension and mystery, but there was something missing.
Granted I have only read Tipping the Velvet (I really should read Fingersmith) but what I know and expect from Waters is something set in the 1800’s. Needless to say this was an enjoyable novel, exploring the differences in classes and the effects of World War I on the people in London. This period of time is an interesting one; the results of the war and the modernisation of London make for an interesting backdrop.
What I think Sarah Waters does best is create incredibly complex characters and The Paying Guests in no exception. Told from the point of view of Frances Wray, all the characters within the novel slowly take form, as secrets and new facts are revealed about them. This is an effective way to build a character and allows them to grow with small reveals that are both expected and unexpected.
The main focus of this novel is the blossoming romance between Frances and Lilian, this is expected from Waters and where she really excels. The idea of forbidden love is a heavy theme, not just because a lesbian relationship would be taboo but also the fact that Lilian was stuck in a marriage she wasn’t happy with. This allows the reader to explore the concepts of love and relationships in interesting ways; should we be encouraging the relationship between Frances and Lilian when one is married?
As I said earlier, I still think there was something missing in this novel. There is a gothic element that runs through The Paying Guests which starts off well, with all the secrets that slowly began to be revealed. However this stopped working for me when the plot became too predictable. I’m not opposed to a predictable plot; the focus on the character development was effective enough. The problem was the whole gothic aspect became clunky and the basic plot didn’t allow this theme to really go anywhere and just left me wanting more.
Comparing this novel with Tipping the Velvet is probably a little unfair; this is a completely different type of book. Having read one great Sarah Waters book, I expected a little more. I like the way Sarah Waters writes characters and captures a time period; I would have liked to see her do more with a gothic theme. Somehow The Paying Guests was on track to being another great novel by Waters but for me, it fell a little short. Maybe someone new to Sarah Waters would enjoy this one more, as it gives a little tamer introduction to what this author does best. Having said that, I’m still excited to read everything written by Waters; she is a great author.
This review originally appeared on my blog: literary-exploration.com/2014/09/17/the-paying-guests-by-sarah-waters/
