Quote: The Little Stranger

I’ve been reading Sarah Water’s gothic tale The Little Stranger. It is classified as a ‘literary ghost story’ and that describes it well. A slow but absorbing read, with layers of meaning. Not a quick book to read on the plane, but instead one you can enjoy once you are on your holiday and have time to linger over it.

There is a breakup in the book and Waters describes the feelings and thoughts you go through straight after perfectly:

My mind, sober, felt as though it would burst. The simple loss of Caroline was hard enough to bear, but the loss of her was the loss of so much more. Everything Id planned and hoped for, I could see it – I could see it, melting away from me! I was like a thirsty man reaching after a mirage of water – putting out my hands to the vision and watching it turn to dust. And there was all the stab and humiliation of having supposed it to be mine. I thought of people who must now be told: Seeley , Graham, the Desmonds, the Rossiters – everyone. I saw their sympathetic or pitying faces, and I imagined the sympathy and pity turning, behind my back, to scandal and satisfaction…I couldn’t bear it.