The Little Stranger, by Sarah Waters. This story set in post-WW II England is a masterful exploration of the hazy edges of unreliable first-person narration. Faraday, a country doctor, narrates this tale of an aristocratic family driven to madness and suicide by “the little stranger” in Hundreds, their decaying Warwickshire mansion—but Waters gradually reveals …
Book Review: Ragtime
E.L. Doctorow, Ragtime. Wow. What a book. This is a page-turner (even with its unfashionably long paragraphs –some longer than a full page). We have an omniscient narrator fully in control of his material, a historical period (1910-14 or so) absolutely brimming with fascinating events and people (Magician Harry Houdini, Magnate JP Morgan, Architect Stanford …