Jezebooks: Sarah Waters
If you haven’t read any Sarah Waters? Lady, are you in for a page-turning, spine-tingling, word-smithing, sexy treat! Four words: lesbian historical ghost stories.
Sarah waters describes her work as ‘lesbo historical romps,’ but while her meticulously-researched, erotic stories of mystery, thrills and the occult do an amazing job of “teasing out lesbian stories from parts of history that are regarded as quite heterosexual,” as she puts it, she’s far more than a “queer writer” – rather, she’s an amazing storyteller who happens to paint lesbian characters unusually well. Influenced by the gothic chills of Wilkie Collins and Henry James, Waters’ writing is engrossing and page-turning, but always deft, skillful, intelligent. To call her novels thinking women’s beach reads maybe does them a disservice, but at the same time, what could be better for a long weekend of uninterrupted reading? Her latest, The Little Stranger, takes us inside the crumbling estate and crumbling family of the Ayres; the result is both ghost story and family drama. It’s a bit of a departure for Waters, as it features a male narrator and more of a country-house-mystery set-up. We can’t wait, but If, like us, you’re at the mercy of libraries and paperbacks, start with her earlier catalogue: