The Paying Guests

Two or three pages into this, I was already basking in Sarah Waters' magnificent sense of interior life. Although writing entirely in the third person, she has the wonderful ability to get inside her protagonist, her feelings, her fears, and her desires. This is a long novel (564 pages), but a concentrated one. Its effective cast is small: four people in a shabby-genteel house in South London. Even when it opens out onto a wider stage at the end, its feeling remains that of chamber drama, closeted and confined, though extraordinarily rich within those secret spaces.It is 1922. Frances Wray lives with her mother in a substantial house in Champion Hill, a well-to-do neighborhood in Camberwell, South London. Her brothers have been killed in the War; her father has died of natural causes, leaving behind a trail of debts that has forced the women to dismiss their servants and take in lodgers, or "paying guests" as they prefer to call them. These are a young couple, Len and Lil Barber; he is an insurance clerk in the City; she spends her time decorating their rooms with colorful gewgaws that show a certain flair, if little taste. For this being a British novel, there is of course a subtext of class. Hard up though they may be, Frances and her mother are gentry; Len and Lil belong to what is several times referred to (without apology) as "the clerk class," lower middle class to their upper middle. It is only one of a number of factors that tilt the tables in the house, though adding spice to whatever games may be played on them. For it goes without saying that Frances will get involved with her lodgers, young people like herself after all, and that this involvement will bring passion and devastation in its wake.[STOP HERE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW THE NATURE OF THAT INVOLVEMENT!]Those who have read Sarah Waters before will know that she is drawn to lesbian subjects, and so not be surprised that Frances will be attracted to Lillian, honoring her by using her full name. I was conscious all along of the extraordinary balancing act that this demands from the author. She is as far as possible from wanting to titillate. Even her descriptions of physical sex are intended to express the overwhelming power of emotional passion -- or, in one striking scene towards the end, the barriers to passion. For her, clearly, love between women is a heaven-sent miracle, natural and in every way normal. And yet, to create a story, she has to emphasize its less normal aspects. The love story that occupies the first half of the book would be difficult to write in a heterosexual context without the risk of triteness, but the spice of transgression lends it a freshness that speaks again to all of us, regardless of orientation. At the same time, it creates a sinister foreboding that hangs over everything, a knowledge that if there are secrets in one aspect of their lives, there may well be other secrets lying in wait to ambush them. And when disaster strikes and they find themselves embroiled in a notorious trial, the secrecy of their relationship puts them into an almost insoluble moral quandary. I started the novel leisurely exploring the interior life of its main character; I ended it reading breathlessly for a hundred pages at a stretch, unable to put it down until I could find -- or rather, the author could find -- some ending that was both ethically acceptable and true to its time. She did, although there may be some who question the ethics; the lives of women in Waters' world seldom have neat endings.Waters is known as a writer of historical fiction. The Victorian setting is very important to her earlier novels  TIPPING THE VELVET , AFFINITY , and  FINGERSMITH . THE NIGHT WATCH  is set during and after the London Blitz (and surely an influence on Kate Atkinson's  LIFE AFTER LIFE ).  THE LITTLE STRANGER , her novel before this one, is set in the aftermath of the Second World War. So the choice of 1922 is not a casual one here. I thought I heard deliberate echoes of  MRS DALLOWAY  in a morning walk that Frances takes through London early in the novel, and just as it is in Woolf, the precariousness of the postwar world is a subtle but important theme. There are references to the number of out-of-work ex-servicemen around the streets and the decline in public safety generally supposed to result from it. Men who have not fought tend to be defensive and insecure; there is not a single strong male character in the book. Women have got the vote, and many have taken jobs for the first time, but they are still in an anomalous position, unable to take full control of their own lives. [Feminists might reply that most still can't.] In such a world of faded promise, it is not merely lesbians that have the tables tilted against them, but women everywhere.

The novel is beautifully written with intricate details of a life that's lost its luster. Frances' father badly invested his money and after his death leaves his once prominent family struggling to make ends meet. Her mother likes to ignore these things and proceed as usual. The Great War has taken a toll on everyone, including the deaths of Frances' two brothers. She and her mother must take in 'paying guests' to pay the bills. The Barbers seem a nice couple at first, but cracks in their marriage begin to emerge.Frances, who has already had a failed lesbian relationship, finds herself attracted to Mrs. Barber. But a terrible accident upends everything.The first half of the book was interesting, though it dragged in places. The second half, after the accident had me hooked. Frances could be careless, when she knew she was being investigated. And Lillian, Mrs. Barber, was a flighty woman caught up over her head. I was surprised that she succumbed to this dangerous, at the time, relationship with another woman, when that didn't seem in her nature. Still, a worthwhile read.

Let me start by saying that I loved this book. I see there are quite a few 3, 2 and 1 star reviews, with various reasons given, and all I can say is that those reviewers just didn't get it. This is a prose-heavy book, written in the style of many authors of English mysteries (although this technically is not a mystery) and evocative of a bygone age, in this case, 1922 post-First World War. The widowed Mrs. Wray and her unmarried daughter, Frances, live in a formerly grand villa in an exclusive and high-class neighborhood of South London. Frances is in her late 20's and is unmarried, which in that day and time classified her as a "spinster". They have fallen on hard times financially following the death of Mr. Wray and the discovery that the had totally mismanaged and lost any fortunes they may have had. Mrs. Wray and Frances were first forced to dismiss their servants and cook and Frances took on the onerous task of maintaining the house. This was a time before modern cleaning products and appliances, and reading about Frances's routine household duties made me feel exhausted - just the necessary daily chores sound overwhelming today. They are finally at the point where they owe the grocer, the butcher and everyone else, and they make the decision to rent out part of the house, or in the parlance of the day, take in paying guests. Enter Lilian and Leonard Barber (Lil and Len), a young couple several years younger than Lilian. England adhered very strictly to a class system at that time and the Barbers, while a respectable couple, were members of the slightly lower "clerk class", despite Len's good-paying job and his salary advancements. This creates some major changes in the household - to provide a suite of rooms for the Barbers, Mrs. Wray is required to move her bedroom. Frances retains her bedroom on the same floor as the Barbers' rooms, and this necessitates sharing the landing with the couple. The house has no bathroom and an outhouse is located outside the kitchen, which requires the Barbers to go through the Wrays' kitchen to get to it. The only bathtub is also located off the kitchen - fortunately very few people bathed daily in that era. Frances handles most of the dealings with the Barbers. She finds Len agreeable, for the most part, but perceives a suggestive undertone in some of the things he says. She gradually becomes more and more friendly with Lil, and it slowly becomes apparent that this is becoming a romantic interest. I definitely don't want to put any spoilers in this review, because this is a story that unfolds slowly like a flower opening. Each delicately-nuanced development reveals a new aspect to the story until these events and prior events stand in a line like dominos just waiting for the slightest touch of a finger to bring everything crashing down. Frances at first appears sensible and no-nonsense, but slowly layers are peeled away to reveal a nervous, apprehensive and somewhat innocent young woman. Lil appears to be a somewhat flighty girl, insecure about her class status and obsequious to those of a "higher class" like the Wrays. As the blurb for the book states, there is a murder about halfway through the book and from that point, the suspense starts to build. I stayed awake half the night to finish the book. I had several possible endings in my mind, but never came near to guessing what actually happened. I found the ending satisfying. To those reviewers who felt there was "graphic sex", be assured that sex is only very lightly touched upon and not detailed. Those readers may have been offended by the lesbian overtones, but that element really only added to the suspense because of the prohibitions, both social and legal, against it in England in that era. I totally enjoyed the detailed descriptions of the locale, the day-to-day goings on in this period right after the war, with the return of a multitude of now-unemployed former soldiers, the habits and lives of the various "classes" and how people lived and dressed at that time. The day-to-day lives of the main characters and the dramatic events that overcame them were exciting and suspenseful. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who enjoys English mysteries and psychological thrillers.

This is rather different from my usual crime choices, though the second half of the book did have a criminal aspect, it was the weaker part of the book. I liked that the romance was not straightforward and that it was set in the 20's, a time quite interesting, especially post Downton Abbey. That said, it is a long book, not just in physical length but also in the lengthy descriptions the writer gives. I liked this kind of prose in the beginning when we were still being introduced to the characters, but tis went on for so long that by the end, the characters felt less like real people and more like actors acting on a stage.Give this book a go if you like, but don't feel bad about skim-reading some sections.

This book starts slowly, building the scenario for the story. It is a love story, a crime story, a suspense - the lot, rolled into one un-put-down-able book. Once you get into it, you certainly won't want to put it down. The characters are real, their fear palpable. You live their dilema along with them.

Zum InhaltNachdem der Vater und die zwei Söhne im Ersten Weltkrieg ums Leben gekommen sind, leben Emily Wray und ihre Tochter Frances allein in ihrer großen Villa. Frances verrichtet alle Hausarbeiten, denn auch die Dienerschaft musste entlassen werden. Trotzdem ist das Geld knapp, deshalb nehmen die Wrays das junge Ehepaar Leonard und Lilian Barber als "zahlende Gäste" auf. Während Emiliy Wray es kaum verwinden kann, dass sich die Gesellschaftsstruktur im Land seit dem Krieg geändert und sie ihre gesellschaftliche Position verloren hat, kommt die unkonventionelle und lesbische Frances mit den neuen Verhältnissen gut zurecht. Sie freundet sich nicht nur mit Lilian an, sondern beginnt eine leidenschaftliche Affäre mit ihr. Die verbotene Beziehung muss im Dunkeln bleiben, denn sonst wäre ein Skandal unausweichlich. Doch ewig lässt sich eine solche Affäre nicht verheimlichen und als Leonard davon erfährt, kommt es zu einer Tragödie...BeurteilungDer Roman ist in drei Hauptteile gegliedert, die unterschiedlichen literarischen Genres zugeordnet werden können: Der erste Teil gehört in die Rubrik "Erzählung", er zeichnet in ruhiger, relativ ausschweifender Weise ein Gesellschaftsbild der Nachkriegszeit im Allgemeinen und der veränderten Lebenssituation im Hause Wray im Besonderen. Der zweite Teil ist ein (lesbischer) Liebesroman mit Romantik und auch erotischen Szenen. Der letzte Teil kann durchaus als Krimi gesehen werden und bietet eine Menge Spannung. Obwohl der Leser als Augenzeuge des Geschehens weiß, was vorgefallen ist, kann er das Ende des Romans nicht vorhersehen.Der Sprachstil ist analysierend und einfühlsam, dabei sehr detailverliebt, sodass der Leser etwas Geduld mitbringen muss. Es lohnt sich jedoch, etwas mehr Zeit in dieses Buch zu investieren, denn man bekommt eine eindrucksvolle Geschichte vorgesetzt, die lange im Gedächtnis haften bleibt und auch Anlass zu Diskussionen über gewisse ethische Fragen bieten kann.Die Charaktere sind gründlich und glaubwürdig ausgestaltet, das gilt nicht nur für die Hauptfiguren, sondern auch für Nebenfiguren wie z.B. neugierige Nachbarn. Interessant ist auch die Beobachtung der polizeilichen Arbeit, die in den Zwanzigerjahren des letzten Jahrhunderts in forensischer Hinsicht noch in den Kinderschuhen steckte und heutzutage ganz anders verlaufen würde.FazitEin eindrucksvoller Roman, für den man etwas mehr Zeit mitbringen sollte!

OMG! I hated both the leads even as I read but couldn't put the book down. At points, the story makes the Scotland Yard and the British police look silly and clueless. Enjoyable. I am still confused about Lilian and Frances.

ATTENZIONE: SPOILERSLe prime due parti del libro sono un po' lente, forse: la storia delle due donne lasciate quasi sul lastrico dalla guerra (e dalla morte dei fratelli e del marito) quasi stenta a decollare, ma la stagnazione della narrazione ci sta, se si pensa all'esistenza di Frances e sua madre in quel limbo del dopoguerra, in cui due donne senza praticamente più famiglia hanno il problema di mantenere una casa diventata troppo grande e troppo costosa, senza perdere il loro status sociale, soprattutto agli occhi degli amici della madre. In questo ambiente stagnante e contenuto, in cui la figlia, Frances, rinuncia ad avere una sua vita propria e indipendente per paura di urtare la moralità della madre e perderla, si inseriscono due giovani "ospiti paganti", Mr e Mrs Barber, neosposini all'apparenza felici, ma con qualche scheletro nell'armadio.Con il loro arrivo, l'esistenza della casa viene stravolta, un po' perché Mr. Barber, Leonard, non fa mistero di volerci provare, almeno all'inizio, anche con Frances, e perché il matrimonio non è fondato proprio sulla base dell'amore: i due si sono sposati perché Lilian, la ragazza, è rimasta incinta. Il fatto che poi abbia anche perso il bambino e non abbia più voluto saperne di gravidanze ha ulteriormente complicato il rapporto: i due sembrano andare d'accordo, ma vivono quasi due vite separate, e sicuramente non li aiuta il fatto che Frances e Lilian si innamorino una dell'altra.Da qui in poi, la lentezza progressivamente scompare, e la storia comincia a correre verso un disastro che sembra prima vagamente aleggiare, poi sempre più pesantemente incombere sulla casa e sui suoi occupanti, finché una sera Lilian uccide Leonard, per amore di Frances (la faccio breve e limito gli spoiler). Da questo punto in poi, si rivela tutta l'abilità della Waters nel costruire atmosfere, sentimenti e personaggi: un'autrice capace di far provare al lettore paura, senso di colpa e nervosismo, come se fosse stato il lettore stesso a vibrare il colpo fatale, è un'autrice che vale la pena di essere letta, e per cui vale la pena tollerare una qualche lentezza, se poi quando prende carattere e velocità non permette più di lasciare il libro, perché bisogna sapere come finisce, e perché.(recensione apparsa anche su Anobii)