Haunting novel

Ghosts, like UFOs and fibermyalgia, are something many people believe to be very real, while others scoff. We hear from both sides in The Little Stranger (2009), a superb novel by Sarah Waters.

The scoffer is Dr. Faraday, a middle-aged physician who becomes a regular visitor at Hundreds Hall, a decaying English mansion where the three surviving members of the one proud Ayers family have fallen on hard times. They make do by selling off portions of their land to developers. Roderick, a young man wounded in World War II, manages the estate for his mother and his sister, Caroline.

Faraday, the narrator of the story, often describes Caroline in negative terms, calling her plain and thick-legged, even as Waters slowly reveals he is falling in love with her. She is, in fact, the most appealing character in the novel, and readers will fall in love with her, as well.

Betty, the teenage maid, is the first to sense "a bad thing" in the old house. Then Gyp, Caroline's sweet dog, inexplicably bites a little girl, and Roderick, already broken psychologically by the war, is driven to madness. Mrs. Ayers comes to believe the ghost of her first daughter, Susan, may be haunting the house. She hears strange noises and voices. There are fires and markings on walls.

The doctor sees that Roderick gets the care he needs in an asylum, while trying to assure Mrs. Ayers, and eventually Caroline, that no spirits or poltergeists roam the house. Meanwhile he begins to court Caroline, although the more he presses for marriage, the more distracted she becomes. Is there really a "little stranger" in this spooky old house? Who is really being deceived, the Ayers family or the doctor?

This novel is long and slow-moving, yet one's interest in the story never lags. As with The Paying Guests, Sarah Waters delivers a winner.