The Little Stranger

Warwickshire, 1948. Dr. Faraday, a country doctor from a modest background, is summoned to Hundreds Hall, a Georgian house he first saw as a child. Once grand, it is now crumbling around the Ayres family who still live there.

Visits to the Hall soon become routine for Faraday. He forms close ties with the widowed Mrs. Ayres, her son Roderick, who bears the scars of war, and her practical, plain daughter Caroline. Money is short, the estate is hard to maintain, and the social order that once held them up is fading.

Then odd and troubling events start to unsettle the household. Faraday trusts only what can be examined and explained, so he looks for medical and psychological causes. He narrates the whole novel, and the reader sees the house only through his eyes.

The pace is slow and the mood heavy with atmosphere. It is a ghost story, and also a study of class and of the English country house in decline once the Second World War has ended. The Man Booker Prize shortlisted it, and Lenny Abrahamson directed a film version released in 2018.

The question that drives it is whether a rationalist's explanations can account for what is happening at Hundreds Hall.