The Paying Guests

This frustrated the bejesus out of me. It could have been a great book and it was not. I hate to beat a dead horse, but I will chime in one more time to say that this should have been 200 pages shorter. There are 3 full pages describing the FLOOR in Lilian's family home, the way in which the floors change as one ascends the stairs, the way the light from below shines through. I get what Waters was doing -- drawing this picture of a family trying to look more monied than they were, creating a Hollywood set on the first floor while leaving floors unfinished and fires unlit above. But 3 full pages? No. And insult to injury: In nearly 600 pages we know almost nothing of Lillian. Maybe some of the space dedicated to describing floors, and show more courtroom walls, flowers, tchotchkes, and rugs could have been spent making one of the book's central characters into an actual person? Frances is the only character we get to know, and she is beautifully drawn. But Lillian is an empty sack. At very least we should be able to see her through Frances' eyes, to see what she might have fallen in love with. We don't. She seems rather average, rather tacky, rather dull, rather selfish. It would have been nice to know more about Chrissy as well, since that relationship and its end were so much a part of Frances' connection to Lillian. So I guess the book was both overwritten and underwritten. But even so, it was clear that Waters is a writer of exceptional talent.

I love spare prose, but I also love lush ripe prose done well. Waters' prose is gorgeous. When she is at her best her words are positively synesthetic. I am reading words, but I I can see and smell what I am reading, can feel the brush of flesh against my own. And the sex! I often complain that literary sex scenes are terrible and utterly non-erotic. Not so here. If they are non-erotic it is because the sex is bad, but when the sex is good it is hot and visceral and still literary. Few do this well - its masterful. This is my first Waters, but I will read more because if a writer can do that, I am a fan. I want to see that wondrous talent better deployed.

Note, I listened to this book, and Juliet Stevenson is a wonderful narrator. show less

Where I got the book: purchased on Kindle. A read for my IRL book club.

I came to this novel having barely skimmed the description, so I had absolutely no idea what to expect. As I started it, one book club friend was lamenting that she was waiting for something to happen…

And I must admit, this story has a slow lead-in. It’s 1922; London is still recovering from the War, with unemployed ex-servicemen everywhere, many families still mourning the men they’ve lost, and the former servant class deserting their pre-War positions for greener pastures. Frances and her mother are forced, by their dwindling income, to let out part of their house to lodgers, or “paying guests” as it’s known in their genteel part of London. (I believe show more Champion Hill is an invented location, but Waters makes it completely convincing.) Their guests turn out to be Len and Lil Barber, several steps below the Wrays on the social scale but definitely climbing—Len has a good job, and Lil leads the idle, pointless life of a lower-middle-class wife. The upper middle classes and those above them are expected to do charity work, and Mrs. Wray still clings to this routine, leaving Frances to do all the housework since they can no longer afford servants.

The story gradually builds through the inevitable encounters between the Wrays and the Barbers, mostly due to the fact that you have to pass through the kitchen to get to the toilet. One of the frequently encountered peculiarities of English houses, even less than a century ago, was that even a plumbed-in toilet was outdoors—my parents’ house, which was built in the Thirties, still has theirs, attached to the kitchen wall but very definitely outside (the one in the bathroom was put there later). At my great-grandmother’s house, you had to “go down the garden” to “see Auntie.” I know, it makes me feel like a relic from another age. (My other grandparents’ house had an inside loo of the enormous Victorian variety, with a stout wooden seat, hard semi-transparent paper, and tooth powder instead of toothpaste in the bathroom. I am OLD.)

Another location for encounters is the upstairs landing, since Frances still has her bedroom on that floor; the Barbers spill out of their space into the Wrays’, a perpetual intrusion that announces just how much space they are going to take up in the lives of the two Wray women.

Despite Mrs. Wray’s reluctance to have anything more to do with “that class of people” than they have to, a friendship slowly builds between Lil and Frances. Along the way we also find out that the great love of Frances’ life was a woman, Chrissy, whom she still visits, but that when it came to choosing between her mother and respectability or Chrissy, social ostracism, and a bohemian lifestyle, Frances took the easier path. Chrissy has moved on, while Frances is still stuck, clinging to the shreds of an old life which is literally falling into pieces around her (her clothing, her hidden underwear in particular, is wearing thin and falling into holes—a nice touch.)

And up to this point, despite the fact that there wasn’t much happening, I was absorbed in the story. I loved the depiction of post-War London with its gradually changing social attitudes and the rise of the new type of middle class represented by Lil and Len. I loved the tension the Wray women experience when it comes to keeping up appearances. I enjoy literary novels which present the reader with slow revelation of the truths and lies of the past. I had only a vague idea of where the story was going, but I was comfortable with it.

And THEN…Well, I’m not going to tell you. Seriously, this novel is best read without spoilers of any kind—let me just say that my friend’s complaint about nothing happening simply meant she hadn’t read far enough into the book. There were several twists, too, so just when I thought I was pretty sure of the outcome, the rug was pulled out from under my feet and I had to start guessing all over again. Which is why I stayed up way too late last night so I could finish it.

The writing is beautiful, without a single word out of place or any slip into too-modern speech or attitudes. It’s a novel in the tradition of literary realism, a very warts-and-all look at humankind that nonetheless never slides into outright pessimism or dislike of the human race. I’m trying to decide whether Waters wrote from a stance of moral impartiality (as far as that can be achieved) or whether her sympathies did, after all, lean toward her protagonists. She does make it clear that we have a choice as to the paths we are going to take, even when we feel caught up in events, but shows, I think, that we make those choices wearing a blindfold.

Some of the realism overwhelmed me at times, especially at one point when I felt there were far too many bodily fluids sloshing around. I have my limits. And there was something eerily symbolic about that whole business of constantly passing through the kitchen to get to the bathroom…and the house that Frances never seemed able to keep clean after a while, and that began literally disintegrating by the end. Of course it was a whole world that disintegrated as a result of the First World War, only I don’t suppose the people caught up in that war actually realized it until much later.

All ramblings aside, this was a nice literary read, and a painstakingly researched piece of historical fiction to boot. I feel like there are some very strong writers in the British Isles right now, many of them of an age that promises a good many books to come. Going to Sarah Waters’ author page, I note I have three more of her books on my TBR list—I just requested The Little Stranger from the library, to round out my acquaintance with her writing.

I think The Paying Guests will probably earn a place in my Top Ten for 2014. Recommended. show less

I actually enjoyed this book quite a bit. Set in England in 1922, the story follows Frances, a 26 year old self-prescribed "spinster" who lives with her elderly mother. Due to their diminishing income, they decide to take in a young married couple as lodgers. As their lives begin to intertwine, a passionate relationship develops and Frances finds herself subject to secrets, both romantic and deadly, of her own and of her "paying guests."

This was my first novel from Sarah Waters, and it is clear that she excels in both character development and narrative. This is a hearty book, over 500 pages, and yet I found myself zipping through it in only a couple days. I will admit it probably could've been ~50-100 pages less... but that being show more said, it is definitely an enjoyable read. It isn't particularly fast paced, but the way Waters handles complex characters with intriguing interior motives and conflicts is worth reading. This is absolutely one of those books that will have you question, "What would I do?" particularly in the second half.

I'm definitely interested in reading more by Waters, particularly those novels that are even better reviewed (such as Fingersmith). show less

https://nwhyte.livejournal.com/3216960.html

The Paying Guests really blew me away. It's 1922. Frances and her mother, having lost Frances' brothers in the war and her father soon after, are in reduced circumstances and need to take lodgers. Lilian and Leonard are of a less genteel social background and there is a restrained clash of cultures - and then romance, and then murder. The sense of a society where many of the young men have been killed but the old men are still in control is conveyed very effectively, and Frances as the viewpoint character is tremendously sympathetic even when she does things that are fundamentally not very nice. Waters claims to have researched the legal process around murder trials pretty intensely, but the show more book wears that fairly lightly. Really strongly recommended. show less

SEX, fingers, blood, fingers, death, gloves, passion, feet, loss, fingers

I’m guessing that got your attention. It’s also the gist of the book, though not necessarily in that order. The first half is packed with sexual tension – and release - but most reviews seem to shy away from indicating that. Tastefully explicit, and touchingly erotic; “The PGs” is definitely not PG.

It’s a story of two very different parts (but oddly divided into three sections): the first is a love story, that is doubly taboo (two women; Frances is impoverished gentry, and Lilian is of the “clerk class”), and the second is a crime drama, culminating in lengthy court scenes. It’s set in London, in 1922. Frances Wray lives with her widowed mother; show more the father’s debts necessitate letting rooms to the aspirational insurance clerk, Len Barber, and his somewhat Bohemian wife, Lilian.

As I attempt to assemble my thoughts, they won’t really gel: most of the specific points that come to mind are criticisms or more like discussion points for a book group – and yet I eagerly raced through nearly 600 pages (and not just for the sex). That’s more of a mystery than the plot was. What follows may sound like a 3* review; the extra star I’ve awarded it reflects my enjoyment.

Overall, it seems a little unpolished, maybe even unfinished. Perhaps Waters has reached the degree of success that, like Rowling, means editors can be ignored, so perhaps they don’t bother to make many suggestions.

Sex and Sexuality… Praise and Prejudice

This is my second Waters. The other was Fingersmith, barely six months ago (review here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/391385777).

In Fingersmith, if you know nothing about the author, and especially if you do know the classic novel on which the plot is based, the brief lesbian scenes might have been a surprise. Here, though, it is obvious from the start who the central couple will be. That creates a different dynamic: the titillation of noting all the clues (long fingers, longing fingers, stolen glances, fleeting physical contact, removing gloves, a glimpse of a stocking), waiting for something definite to happen. When it does, it’s far headier than anything in Fingersmith, and fingers feature even more prominently throughout, not just in a direct, sensual way: Len has manicures (his mistress is a beautician), fingerprints are used in the investigation, and the significance of rings and removing or putting on gloves is never overlooked.

Waters based the book on high-profile murder cases of the period, but gave it a twist, by making Frances female. That gives Frances more of a backstory, and it makes later events more plausible, because most of the other characters never consider the possibility of two women being romantically involved.

One specific scene where her gender affects one’s interpretation is in the pantry. I was uneasy about how consensual that first encounter was: how coercive was Frances being? As the scene developed, those concerns subsided, and that was reinforced by subsequent events. Nevertheless, had Frances been a man, my unease would have been greater. Does that make me guilty of narrow-minded (hetero)sexism?

Another way Waters inverts traditional storytelling is that everyone starts off unhappily… and everyone ends up unhappily!

This is not a bad book – I enjoyed reading it and have given it 4* - but I don’t see why it has earned so much praise and so many literary awards. If Francis (male) rented out rooms, would the book have been lost in a sea of similar historical fiction? Quite possibly, but I suppose that’s the point: literature should break free of its relentlessly heterosexual norms, regardless of the sexuality of likely readers. I applaud that, really, I do. But it still doesn’t make this a great book, just an interesting and enjoyable one.

Tabloid Press

The evils of the tabloids are made painfully and plausibly clear: the way they exploit and harass those suffering, and the way gossip sells, even to those who disapprove, but find it irresistible. The press doorstep relatives, drip-feed salacious titbits, crop photos to twist the story, gate-crash a funeral, and so on. This is one of the stronger aspects of the book: it speaks to contemporary concerns without being heavy-handed, while being (I think) historically accurate. Also, it’s a theme that once it arises, is a consistent undercurrent.

Ambiguity is Good

I like the fact there are important, unanswered questions. I’m still pondering these half dozen:

1. Who was pulling whose strings? Was Frances the predatory one who ended up with more than she bargained for, or was Lilian using her all along? I think probably both: when Frances first told Lilian she was a lesbian, the friendship cooled. Maybe Lilian rekindled it only because she’d realised how she could use Frances to escape her marriage.

2. Lilian certainly wanted to get out of her marriage, though her motivation is cloudier: was it the lost child, Len’s affair, an entirely separate wish for independence? What was the nature of their relationship, especially the drunken game of Snakes and Ladders, where “Frances had the sense that their antics were a weird kind of show, done for here but not flattering to her”?

3. Lilian had explicitly wished Len dead at least once, and in the heat of the fight, I think she probably meant to kill him. Frances later asks if it was an accident, but Lilian evades the question and “straightens the cuffs of her gloves”. I’m less sure whether she had planned to kill him, or to find some other escape, such as exposing his affair. The life insurance suggests the former, though.

4. I doubt Lilian and Frances grow old together, but I'm less sure how long they might have tried to make a go of it or what sort of relationships either would go on to have. Lilian wouldn’t have stayed single for long, but male or female partner? I fear Frances would just retreat to resentful spinsterhood, either in the house of unhappy memories, with another set of paying guests, or, perhaps worse, in a smaller “clerk class” house with no memories.

5. How much did Frances’ mother guess? She knew her daughter had had one relationship with a woman (Christina) and had been concerned at the intensity of her friendship with Lilian (though that was partly a matter of their different social positions). There were oddities around the time of the murder, some of which she noticed; she even asks Frances outright if she is keeping secrets about the death. If she believed her daughter complicit in murder, how would that affect their already prickly relationship? As an upstanding member of the parish, would she try to persuade Frances to confess (probably), and if that failed, would she report Frances to the police (probably not)?

6. After Spencer’s acquittal, Frances and Lilian are understandably relieved. They discuss what’s happened, the power of love, the pain of an unhappy relationship, all the people who’ve been affected, but they don’t seem overly burdened about having got away with murder/manslaughter or about future police enquiries. Will they be able to shake it off and live almost as if nothing happened (and if so, what does that say about them?), or will fear and guilt gnaw away at them? Frances wonders if finding happiness would be an insult to those who’ve been harmed, or whether that means it’s their duty to strive for it. We don’t know what Lilian thinks.

Lost Plots

The two main parts of the story hold together well, and I like loose ends. However, there are sub plots and themes that arise, seem important, but are then overlooked, even when they are pertinent. That’s part of what I meant about it feeling unpolished:

1. Prejudice is inherent in the plot; it’s the root of everything, but it felt as if having made it a lesbian story, with an ex-suffragette… that was it. I’m not sure how I would have preferred it, but it seemed as if there was a message struggling to get out, that didn’t. The fact that Frances and Lilian are increasingly unsympathetic characters exacerbates that.

2. Politics is strong early on. We're told about Frances’ activism for women’s rights, to the fury and embarrassment of her parents. After multiple losses (two brothers, her father, and her lover), Frances loses that zeal for protest, which is understandable. However, it seems odd that political ideas cease to be mentioned, apart from frequent reminders that Frances once threw a shoe at an MP (I'm just surprised it wasn't a glove), along with regular crass observations about class differences.

3. Anna Karenina is a book loved by Frances and Lilian, which they discuss early on but then not mentioned for hundreds of pages, until a passing reference near the end. I thought it was going to be a running thread, with parallels to Waters’ story, and perhaps it is (especially the guilt and torment of the second part), but if so, it was a little too subtle for me, and perhaps for a mass-market novel. Either give little hints to the similarities throughout, or (as with Fingersmith) don’t mention the inspiration at all: leave it as a treat for those who know and notice.

Convenient Coincidences

One or two convenient coincidences would be fine, but there were too many significant ones. I don’t read much crime fiction, but surely part of the point is that it’s tightly plotted?

1. A failed marriage is never the fault of just one partner, but Frances and Lilian choose not to see any fault in Lilian at all. All the blame is laid on the pain of the lost child, and on Len. The fact he was always a bit of a letch and then had an affair makes his death less of a tragedy, and so mitigates any guilt.

2. No one saw Len come home up the front path on the evening of his death, even though it was still light.

3. The timing of unrelated events meant Lilian's abortion was assumed to be a miscarriage caused by the shock of Len’s death.

4. Spencer’s admitted previous assault on and threats to Len made the murder charge plausible. The fact Len hadn’t reported it to the police (though he told Lilian and the Wrays he had) made it even more so. The police and prosecution convinced themselves of it and then interpreted the evidence to fit.

5. Spencer's criminal record and “smirking nonchalance” in court made him an easy scapegoat in practical terms, and minimised the injustice of his being remanded and tried.

6. A last-minute witness got Spencer off the hook and off the noose, by confirming his alibi, and thus Frances and Lilian avoided the need to confess to spare his life.

Clunky Metaphors

I found it a racy read in more ways than one. Waters possibly overdid the fingers/gloves (plus a few bare feet) a little, and there were one or two phrases and metaphors that jarred. They are spoilered not because they give away plot, but because it looks a bit too snarky if they’re not hidden.

• "flurries of wind" – snow may be a cliché, but wind just sounds odd.

• “a striped pyjama suit” – even Americans didn’t/don’t say “pyjama/pajama suit” (I checked the Google Ngrams corpus!)

• "she felt as alive as a piece of radium" – huh?

• "chased away like a cockerel chasing away a ghost" – as if that’s a thing.

• "boneless with exhaustion" – if I’m exhausted, my bones feel heavy, but other friends have identified with this, so it may be unfair to include it here.

• Lilian’s lively décor “was as if a giant mouth had sucked a bag of boiled sweets and then given the house a lick” - yuk.

• The second sentence of the novel, relating to the imminent arrival of the paying guests and surely the book itself is the clichéd “It was like waiting to begin a journey”. But it is contradicted and reworked on the next page, “It was like ending one and not wanting to get out of the train”.

• "There was a quickening, a livening – Frances could think of nothing to compare it with save some culinary process. It was like the white of an egg growing pearly in hot water, a milk sauce thickening in the pan." Cos custard is so sexy.

• Awaiting the verdict, she was “slack as worn elastic yet had the taughtness of wire” – oxymorons can work, but I’m not sure that one does.

Quotes I Did Like

I thought the gradual build up of tension and passion was really well done, but those lines are all about context, rather than the words themselves. These lines stand on their own, though:

• Furniture moved to a lesser setting seemed “to be sitting as tensely as unhappy visitors… pining for their grooves and smooches in the room above”.

• On Lilian’s eclectic décor, “If only she would decide on a country and have done with it” is almost worthy of Oscar Wilde.

• “Her gaze… seemed always to be in the process of sliding away, and her pose was a cautious one, as if she were reaching into a thicket, trying to avoid being snagged by thorns.”

• After a makeover, “She felt half disguised by the outfit; half exposed by it”.

• “They could never have looked at each other so nakedly in the dangerous privacy of Champion Hill.”

• Lovers escaping a party “feeling unmoored, suspended, lapped about by the liquid blue night”.

• “They went in and out of lamplight, their shadows fluid under their feet.”

• “The muted tap of her wedding-band, a small chill sound in the darkness.”

• “Sunday, that dull, dull tyrant.”

• “The whole furtive business… of finding and securing and making the most of scraps of time with her – those juicy but elusive morsels of time, that had to be eased like winkles out of their shells, then gobbled down with an eye on the door, an ear to the stair, never comfortably savoured – it had all… been crushing the life out of her.”

• Of a police inspector, “Frances had the impression that his friendliness was all surface – or worse than that, was somehow strategic”.

• “Her own fingers felt blind… The ease and familiarity were gone.”

• “Gardening was simply open-air housework.” show less

Sarah Waters is one of those few authors whose books I feel I am guaranteed to love. However, I have to admit that this one took a while to grow on me.

The first part moves very, very slowly as it introduces us to the characters. Post-WWI, all the men of a once well-to-do family are deceased. Remaining in a large and empty home are just a young woman: Frances, and her elderly, widowed mother. Frances has made a commitment to care for her mother, but from the first, a strain of dissatisfaction is clear.

In order to make ends meet, the two decide to take in lodgers. Enter Leonard and Lilian Barber, a young married couple who turn the house topsy-turvy in small and expected ways, some relating to the class differences of the time but more show more in just the fact of sharing a space that was once private.

Less expected are the feelings that Frances begins to have for Lilian. Far from being the prim and proper spinster that she initially seemed, we learn of scandal in her past, relating to a lady-friend. But can any good come of her new interest in a married woman - one who's also her tenant?

Now, all of that is beautifully written - Waters' language is always exquisite. But it's not what one might call exciting. Hang in there! Because parts two and three really pick up speed, and suddenly this became the sort of novel that I stayed up way past my bedtime, devouring... show less

It's been a while since a book kept me up until 3:00 a.m., but The Paying Guests grabbed me and would not let me go. The wonderfully melodramatic plot, the brilliant characterization of protagonist Frances Wray, the vivid depiction of the zeitgeist in post-WWI London -- each of these elements was equally responsible for the kidnapping of this unsuspecting reader, as masterminded by British novelist Sarah Waters, a three-time Booker Prize finalist. It is such an authentic period piece that I actually thought it might have been written in the 20's. It is slow at first, but becomes a gripping page turner and I couldn't put it down. Have patience! Keep going! You will be happy you did, believe me.
The first three hundred pages of Guests show more belong to Charles Dickens, but the rest of the book reads like pure, uncut Patricia Highsmith. Lesbian sex, brutal murder and frantic cover-ups don’t tend to go hand in hand with subtle slow-burn storytelling. But that’s exactly the case in Sarah Waters’s captivating novel. To say anything more would be a disservice to Waters’s masterful narrative. But suffice it to say that a terrible thing occurs, the women’s relationship is tested and you will be the crazy person staying up until 3 a.m. to see how it all comes together.

Waters brings the best of those disparate muses together and convinces them to dance to the tune of her beautiful music. The constant tension of being morally wrong and practically right in the context of short term situational circumstances made me feel quite restless. It also, for me, captures all the futility and hopelessness of post-war England. The amazing way Waters builds the era through detail and draws our attention to the way life had so drastically changed during the war. I loved Frances and Lillian as characters; they are also casualties of the war. I loved Waters' gentle character building - that they had lost hope and lost their youth, just as so much else was lost in those years. The way they cling to each other to the end is beautiful. How difficult, and how admirable, to pull off an ending that both sates you and leaves you chomping for more… You feel as if an actual life were unfolding before you—a life that happens to be far more thrilling than most.”

Waters is so good about writing about women taking note of other women. I felt deeply moved and nerve-wracked by the secrecy that the women endure as lovers of their era, and I believed in their passion, which is often vivid and tautly observed. Her novel is lived-in, erotic, witty, emotional, and suspenseful…and all of that is in the service of authentic human drama. TPG is deep and unusual in the lives it explores and the terrain of love, desire, domesticity, and treachery it illuminates. A masterpiece of social unease… so compellingly readable, that the temptation to finish the 500-odd pages of Waters’s novel at a sitting is powerful… a virtuoso feat of storytelling. Highly, lovingly, and hugely recommended, with 5 stars.

The audiobook form of this novel is a real gem. (Hachette Audio u.k. ). Narrated by. Juliet Stevenson, actress and star of my all-time favorite movie Truly, Madly, Deeply,, it literally sounded to me SO much like Emma Thompson, from the 1994 version of Sense and Sensibility, I was literally struck dumb, for a while. (PLEASE take this as a compliment, Mrs. Stevenson...!!!!!). The novel's sex scenes, which are both hot and sensually beautiful, that they transcend cheap cliché. Somehow, this cured me of my visualizing Emma Thompson, until the court scenes....lmao. show less